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The Seven Seas 



Actions and Reactions 
Brushwood Boy, The 
Captains Courageous 
Collected Verse 
Day's Work, The 
Departmental Ditties 
and Ballads and Bar- 
rack-Room Ballads 
Diversity of Crea- 
tures, A 
Eyes of Asia, The 
Feet of the Young 

Men, The 
Five Nations, The 
France at War 
Fringes ok the Fleet 
From Sea to Sea 
History of England, A 
Jungle Book, The 
Jungle Book, Second 
Just So Song Book 
Just So Stories 

J^IM 

Kipling Stories and 

Poems Every Child 

Should Know 
Kipling Birthday Book, 

The 
Letters of Travel 
Life's Handicap: Being 

Stories or Mine Own 

People 



Light That Failed, The 

Many Inventions 

Naulahka, The (With 
Wolcott Balestier) 

Plain Tales From the 
Hills 

Puck of Pook's Hill 

Rewards and Fairies 

RuDYARD Kipling's 
Verse: Inclusive Edi- 
tion, 1885-1918 

Sea Warfare 

Seven Seas, The 

Soldier Stories 

Soldiers Three, The 
Story of the Gadsbys, 
AND In Black and 
White 

Song of the English, A 

•Songs from Books 

Stalky & Co. 

They 

Traffics and Discover- 
ies 

Under the Deodars, 
The Phantom 'Rick- 
shaw, AND Wee Willie 
Winkie 

With the Night Mail 

Years Between, The 



The Seven Seas 



By Rudyard Kipling 





GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

1922 



COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY 
RUDYARD KIPLING 

COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



This book is also protected by copyright under 
the laws of Great Britain, and the several 
poems contained herein have also been severally 
copyrighted in the United States of j?nerica 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 









'^)S^OJif 




PRtNTED IN THE UNITED STATES 

AT 

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

DEDICATION TO THE CITY OF BOMBAY. . . V 

A SONG OF THE ENGLISH I 

THE FIRST CHANTEY 1 8. 

THE LAST CHANTEY 21 

THE MERCHANTMEN 26 

MC ANDREW'S HYMN 3 1 

THE MIRACLES 46 

THE NATIVE-BORN 48 

THE KING 54 

THE RHYME OF THE THREE SEALERS "T . . 57 

THE DERELICT 7 1 

THE SONG OF THE BANJO 74 

''THE LINER SHE's A LADY " 80 

MULHOLLAND's CONTRACT 83 

ANCHOR SONG 87 

THE SEA-WIFE 90 

HYMN BEFORE ACTION 93 

TO THE TRUE ROMANCE 96 

THE FLOWERS ICQ 

THE LAST RHYME OF TRUE THOMAS . . . IO4 



PAGB 

THE STORY OF UNG 113 

THE THREE-DECKER . Il8 

AN AMERICAN 12^ 

THE MARY GLOSTER 1 26 

SESTINA OF THE TRAMP-ROYAL . . . . I4I 

BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS, 

"BACK TO THE ARMY AGAIN" . . . -145, 

"BIRDS OF prey" MARCH I49 

"SOLDIER an' sailor TOO" 1 52 

SAPPERS . 156 

THAT DAY ......... 160 

"THE MEN THAT FOUGHT AT MINDEN " . . 163 

CHOLERA CAMP 1 67 

THE LADIES I7I 

BILL 'aWKINS . 175' 

THE MOTHER-LODGE 177 

"FOLLOW ME 'OME" . . . . . . 181 

THE sergeant's WEDDIN' 1 84 

THE JACKET 1 87 

THE 'EATHEN 191 

the shut-eye sentry . . . . . . i98 

"mary, pity women 1" 202 

for to admire 205 

l'envoi. . , 208 




The City Of Bomba:^ 




The Cities are full of pride, 
Challenging each to each — 

This from her mountain-side, 
That from her burthened beach. 

They count their ships full tal&-* 
Their corn and oil and wine. 

Derrick and loom and bale, 
And rampart's gun-flecked line ; 

City by city they hail : 

*' Hast aught to match with mine ?" 



And the men that breed from them 
They traffic up and down. 

But cling to their cities' hem 
As a child to the mother's gown. 



When they talk with the stranger band> 

Dazed and newly alone; 
When they walk in the stranger land* 

By roaring streets unknown ; 
Blessing her where she stands 

For strength above their own. 

(On high to hold her fame 
That stands all fame beyond, 

By oath to back the same, 
Most faithful-foolish-fond ; 

Making her mere-breathed name 
Their bond upon their bond.) 

So thank I God my birth 

Fell not in isles aside — 
Waste headlands of the earth, 

Or warring tribes untried — 
But that she lent me worth 

And gave me right to pride 

Surely in toil or fray 

Under an alien sky. 
Comfort it is to say : 

'* Of no mean city am L** 



(Neither by service nor fee 

Come I to mine estate — 
Mother of Cities to me. 

For I was born in her gate, 
Between the palms and the sea, 

Where the world-end steamers wait.) 

Now for this debt I owe, 

And for her far-borne cheer 
Must I make haste and go 

With tribute to her pier. 

And she shall touch and remit 

After the use of king^ 
(Orderly, ancient, fitj 

My deep-sea plunderings, 
And purchase in all lands. 

And this we do for a sign 

Her power is over mine, 
And mine I hold at her hands. 



THE SEVEN SEAS 



A SONG OF THE ENGLISH. 

Fair is our lot — O goodly is our heritage / 
{Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your 
mirth I) 
For the Lord our God Most High 
He hath made the deep as dry, 
He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all 
the Earth ! 

Yea, though we sinned — and our rulers went from 

righteousness — 
Deep in all dishonour though we stained our gar^ 
ments' hem. 
Oh be ye not dismayed. 
Though we stumbled and we strayed. 
We were led by evil counsellors — the Lord shall 
deal with them. 

Hold ye the Faith — the Faith our Fathers 

seaUd us; 
Whoring not with visions — overwise and over stale. 



Except ye pay the Lord 
Single heart and single sword, 
Of your children in their bondage shall He ask 
them treble-tale. 

Keep ye the Law — be swift in all obedience. 
Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge 
the ford. 
Make ye sure to each his own 
That he reap what he hath sown ; 
By the peace among Our peoples let men know we 
serve the Lord. 

Hear now a song — a song of broken interludes — 
A song of little cunning ; of a singer nothing 
worth. 
Through the naked words and mean 
May ye see the truth between 
As the singer knew and touched it in the ends of 
all the Earth / 



(Ei)e CfToasttDise £igt)ts. 

Oui brows are wreathed with spindrift and the 

weed is on our knees; 
Oui loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, 

smoking seas. 
From reef and rock and skerry — over headland, 

ness and voe — 
The Coastwise Lights of England watch the ships 

of England go! 

Through the endless summer evenings, on the line- 
less, level floors; 

Through the yelling Channel tempest when the 
syren hoots and roars — 

By day th« dipping house-flag and by night the 
rocket's trail — 

As the sheep that graze behind us so we know 
them where they hail. 

We bridge across the dark, and bid the helmsman 

have a care, 
The flash that wheeling inland wakes his sleeping 

wife to prayer ; 



From our vexed eyries, head to gale, we bind in 

burning chains 
The lover from the sea-rim drawn — his love in 

English lanes. 

We greet the clippers wing-and-wing that race 

the Southern wool; 
We warn the crawling cargo-tanks of Bremen, 

Leith and Hull ; 
To each and all our equal lamp at peril of the 

sea — 
The white wall-sided warships or the whalers of 

Dundee ! 

Come up, come in from Eastward, from the guard- 
ports of the Morn ! 

Beat up, beat in from Southerly, O gipsies of the 
Horn! 

Swift shuttles of an Empire's loom that weave us 
main to main, 

The Coastwise Lights of England give you wel- 
come back again ! 

Go, get you gone up-Channel with the sea-crust 

on your plates ; 
Go, get you into London with the burden of your 

freights ! 



Haste, for they talk of Empire there, and say, if 

any seek, 
The Lights of England sent you and by silence 

shall ye speak. 



(£\)t fSong of t\)c Wtah, 

Hear now the Song of the Dead — in the North by 

the torn berg-edges — 
They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their 

hide-stripped sledges. 
Song of the Dead in the South — in the sun by their 

skeleton horses, 
Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through 

the dust of the sere river-courses. 

Song of the Dead in the East — in the heat-rotted 

jungle hollows, 
Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof ^n the brake 

of the buffalo-wallows. 
Song of the Dead in the West — in the Barrens, tht 

snow that betrayed them. 
Where the wolverine tumbles their packs from the 

camp and the grave-mound they made them; 
Hear now the Song of the Dead ! 



I. 

We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man- 
stifled town; 

We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange 
roads go down. 

Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the 
Power with the Need. 

Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to 
lead. 

As the deer breaks — as the steer breaks — from the 
herd where they graze. 

In the faith of little children we went on our 
ways. 

Then the wood failed — then the food failed — then 
the last water dried — 

In the faith of little children we lay down and 
died. 

On the sand-drift — on the veldt-side — in the fern- 
scrub we lay. 

That our sons might follow after by the bones on 
the way. 

Follow after — follow after! We have watered the 
root, 

And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for 

/ruit! 

6 



Follow after — we are waiting by the trails that 

we lost 
For the sound of many footsteps, for the tread of a 

host. 
Follow after — follow after — for the harvest is 

sown: 
By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to 

your own! 

When Drake went down to the Horn 
And England was crowned thereby, 

' Twixt seas unsailed and shores unhailed 
Our Lodge — our Lodge was born 
{And England was crowned thereby). 

Which never shall close again 

By day nor yet by night, 
While man shall take his life to stake 

At risk of shoal or main 

{By day nor yet by night), 

But standeth even so 

As now we witness here, 
While men depart, of joyful heart. 

Adventure for ^o know. 

{As now bear witness here). 
7 



II. 

We have fed our sea for a thousand years 

And she calls us, still unfed, 
Though there's never a wave of all her waves 

But marks our English dead : 
We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest 

To the shark and the sheering gull. 
If blood be the price of admiralty, 

Lord God, we ha' paid in full! 

There's never a flood goes shoreward now 

But lifts a keel we manned ; 
There's never an ebb goes seaward now 

But drops our dead on the sand — 
But slinks our dead on the sands forlore, 

From The Ducies to the Swin. 
If blood be the price of admiralty, 
If blood be the price of admiralty, 

Lord God, we ha' paid it in! 

We must feed our sea for a thousand years, 

For that is our doom and pride. 
As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind 

Or the wreck that struck last tide — 
Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef 

Where the ghastly blue-lights flare. 



If blood be the price of admiralty, 
If blood be the price of admiralty, 
If blood be the price of admiralty, 
Lord God, we ha' bought it fair I 



^l}c JHeep-sea Cable©. 

The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops 
down from afar — 

Down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the 
blind white sea-snakes are. 

There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the des- 
erts of the deep. 

Or the great gray level plains of ooze where the 
shell-burred cables creep. 

Here in the womb of the world — here on the tie- 
ribs of earth 
Words, and the words of men, flicker and flut- 
ter and beat — 
Warning, sorrow and gain, salutation and mirth — 
For a Power troubles the Still that has neither 
voice nor feet. 



They have wakened the timeless Things ; they 
have killed their father Time ; 
Joining hands in the gloom, a league from the 
last of the sun. 
Hush! Men talk to-day o'er the waste of the ulti- 
mate slime, 
And a new Word runs between: whisperings 
"Let us be one!" 



QTlje 00ng of tl)e Sons. 

One from the ends of the earth — gifts at an open 

door — 
Treason has much, but we. Mother, thy sons have 

more! 
From the whine of a dying man, from the snarl of 

a wolf-pack freed, 
Turn, for the world is thine. Mother, be proud of 

thy seed! 
Count, are we feeble or few ? Hear, is our speech 

so rude ? 
Look, are we poor in the land ? Judge, are we 

men of The Blood ? 

lO 



Those that have stayed at thy knees, Mother, go 

call them in — 
We that were bred overseas wait and would 

speak with our kin. 
Not in the dark do we fight — haggle and flout and 

gibe; 
Selling our love for a price, loaning our hearts for 

a bribe. 
Gifts have we only to-day — Love without promise 

or fee — 
Hear, for thy children speak, from the uttermost 

parts of the sea : 

QTbe 00n9 of tl)e Cflities. 

Bombay. 
Royal and Dower-royal, I the Queen 

Fronting thy richest sea with richer hands — 
A thousand mills roar through me where I glean 

All races from all lands. 

Calcutta. 

Me the Sea-captain loved, the River built, 

Wealth sought and Kings adventured life to hold. 

Hail, England! I am Asia — Power on silt, 

Death in my hands, but Gol41 

If 



Madras. 

Clive kissed me on the mouth and eyes and brow, 

Wonderful kisses, so that I became 
Crowned above Queens — a withered beldama 
now, 

Brooding on ancient fame. 

Rangoon. 

Hail, Mother! Do they call me rich in trade ? 

Little care I, but hear the shorn priest drone, 
And watch my silk-clad lovers, man by maid, 

Laugh 'neath my Shwe Dagon. 

Singapore. 
Hail, Mother! East and West must seek my aid 

Ere the spent gear shall dare the ports afar. 
The second doorway of the wide world's trade 

Is mine to loose or bar. 

Hong-kong. 

Hail, Mother! Hold me fast; my Praya sleeps 

Under innumerable keels to-day. 
Yet guard (and landward) or to-morrow sweeps 

Thy warships down the bay. 

12 



Halifax. 

Into the mist my guardian prows put forth. 
Behind the mist my virgin ramparts lie, 

The Warden of the Honour of the North, 
Sleepless and veiled am 1 1 

Quebec and Montreal. 

Peace is our portion. Yet a whisper rose, 
Foolish and causeless, half in jest, half hate. 

Now wake we and remember mighty blows, 
And, fearing no man, wait! 

Victoria. 

From East to West the circling word has passed, 
Till West is East beside our land-locked blue; 

From East to West the tested chain holds fast. 
The well-forged link rings true ! 

Capetown. 

Hail! Snatched and bartered oft from hand to 
hand, 

I dream my dream, by rock and heath and pine, 
Of Empire to the northward. Ay, one land 

From Lion's Head to Line! 



Melbourne. 

Greeting ! Nor fear nor favour won us place, 
Got between greed of gold and dread of drouth^ 

Loud-voiced and reclcless as the wild tide-race 
That whips our harbour-mouth ! 

Sydney, 
Greeting! My birth-stain have I turned to good; 

Forcing strong wills perverse to steadfastness; 
The first flush of the tropics in my blood, 

And at my feet Success I 

Brisbane, 
The northern stirp beneath the southern skies — 

I build a nation for an Empire's need, 
Suffer a little, and my land shall rise, 

Qyeen over lands indeed! 

Hobart. 
Man's love first found me; man's hate made m* 
Hell; 
For my babes' sake I cleansed those infamies. 
Earnest for leave to live and labour well 

God flung me peace and ease. 

14 



Auckland. 
Last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart — 

On us, on us the unswerving season smiles. 
Who wonder 'mid our fern why men depart 

To seek the Happy Isles! 



(England's ^ttstoer. 

Truly ye come of The Blood; slower to bless than 

to ban ; 
Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man. 
Flesh of the flesh that I bred, bone of the bone 

that I bare; 
Stark as your sons shall be — stern as your fathers 

were. 
Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life 

our tether. 
But we do not fall on the neck nor kiss when we 

come together. 
My arm is nothing weak, my strength is not gone 

by; 

S )ns, I have borne many sons but my dugs ar» 
not dry. 



Look, I have made ye a place and opened wide 
the doors, 

That ye may talk together, your Barons and Coun- 
cillors — 

Wards of the Outer March, Lords of the Lower 
Seas, 

Ay, talk to your gray mother that bore you on her 
knees ! — 

That ye may talk together, brother to brother's 
face — 

Thus for the good of your peoples — thus for the 
Pride of the Race. 

Also, we will make promise. So long as The 
Blood endures, 

I shall know that your good is mine: ye shall feel 
that my strength is yours: 

In the day of Armageddon, at the last great fighl 
of all. 

That Our House stand together and the pillars do 
not fall. 

Draw now the three-fold knot firm on the nine- 
fold bands, 

And the Law that ye make shall be law after the 
rule of your lands. 

This for the waxen Heath, and that for the Wattle- 

bloom, 

i6 



This for the Maple-leaf, and that for the southern 

Broom. 
The Law that ye make shall be law and I do not 

press my will, 
Because ye are Sons of The Blood and call me 

Mother still. 
Now must ye speak to your kinsmen and they 

must speak to you, 
After the use of the English, in straight-flung words 

and few. 
Go to your work and be strong, halting not in 

your ways, 
Baulking the end half- won for an instant dole of 

praise. 
Stand to your work and be wise — certain of sword 

and pen, 
Who are neither children nor Gods, but men in a 

world of men 1 



17 



THE FIRST CHANTEY. 

Mine was the woman to me, darkling I found 

her; 
Haling her dumb from the camp, held her and 

bound her. 
Hot rose her tribe on our track ere I had proved 

her; 
Hearing her laugh in the gloom, greatly I loved 

her. 

Swift through the forest we ran; none stood to 

guard us, 
Few were my people and far; then the flood 

barred us — 
Him we call Son of the Sea, sullen and swollen ; 
Panting we waited the death, stealer and stolen, 

Yet ere they came to my lance laid for the 

slaughter, 
Lightly she leaped to a log lapped in the water; 



Holding on high and apart skins that arrayed her, 
Called she the God of the Wind that he should aid 
her. 

Life had the tree at that word, (Praise we the Giver!) 
Otter-like left he the bank for the full river. 
Far fell their axes behind, flashing and ringing, 
Wonder was on me and fear, yet she was singing. 

Low lay the land we had left. Now the blue 

bound us, 
Even the Floor of the Gods level around us. 
Whisper there was not, nor word, shadow nor 

showing, 
Still the light stirred on the deep, glowing and 

growing. 

Then did He leap to His place flaring from under, 
He the Compeller, the Sun, bared to our wonder. 
Nay, not a league from our eyes blinded with 

gazing. 
Cleared He the womb of the world, huge and 

amazing! 

This we beheld (and we live) — the Pit of the 
Burning, 

Then the God spoke to the tree for our returning; 

19 



Back to the beach of our flight, fearless and slowly, 
Back to our slayers he went: but we were holy. 

Men that were hot in that hunt, women that 

followed, 
Babes that were promised our bones, trembled 

and wallowed: 
Over the necks of the tribe crouching and fawn- 
ing- 
Prophet and priestess we came back from the 
dawning! 



20 



THE LAST CHANTEY. 

"And there was no more sea." 

Thus said The Lord in the Vault above the Cheru- 
bim, 
Calling to the angels and the souls in their de- 
gree: 
**Lo! Earth has passed away 
On the smoke of Judgment Day. 
That Our word may be established shall Wc 
gather up the sea ? " 

Loud sang the souls c^ ^he jolly, jolly mariners: 
"Plague upon the hurricane that made us furl 
and flee! 
But the war is done betv/een us, 
In the deep the Lord hath seen us — 
Our bones we'll leave the barracout', and God 
may sink the sea! " 

3 21 



Then said the soul of Judas that betrayM Him: 
" Lord, hast Thou forgotten Thy covenant 
with me ? 
How once a year I go 
To cool me on the floe, 
And Ye take my day of mercy if Ye take away 
the sea! " 



Then said the soul of the Angel of the Off-shore 
Wind: 
(He that bits the thunder when the bull-mouthed 
breakers flee) : 
*' I have watch and ward to keep 
O'er Thy wonders on the deep, 
And Ye take mine honour from me if Ye take 
away the sea!" 

Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners: 
''Nay, but we were angry, and a hasty folk 
are we! 
If we worked the ship together 
Till she foundered in foul weather, 
Are we babes that we should clamour for a 
vengeance on the sea?" 

22 



f hen said the souls of the slaves that men threw 
overboard : 
** Kennelled in the picaroon a weary band 
were we; 
But Thy arm was strong to save, 
And it touched us on the wave, 
And we drowsed the long tides idle till Thy 
Trumpets tore the sea." 

Then cried the soul of the stout Apostle Paul ta 
God: 
''Once we frapped a ship, and she laboured 
woundily. 
There were fourteen score of these, 
And they blessed Thee on their knees, 
When they learned Thy Grace and Glory under 
Malta by the sea." 

Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners, 
Plucking at their harps, and they plucked un- 
handily: 
" Our thumbs are rough and tarred, 
And the tune is something hard — 
May we lift a Deepsea Chantey such as seamen 
use at sea ? " 

2J 



Then said the souls of the gentlemen-adven- 
turers — 
Fettered wrist to bar all for red iniquity : 
** Ho, we revel in our chains 
O'er the sorrow that was Spain's; 
Heave or sink it, leave or drink it, we were 
masters of the sea ! " 



Up spake the soul of a gray Gothavn 'speck- 
shioner — 
(He that led the flinching in the fleets of fair 
Dundee) : 
" Ho, the ringer and right whale, 
And the fish we struck for sale. 
Will Ye whelm them all for wantonness that 
wallow in the sea ? " 



Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners, 

Crying: ** Under Heaven, here is neither lead 

nor lea! 

Must we sing for evermore 

On the windless, glassy floor ? 

Take back your golden fiddles and we'll beat to 

open sea I '* 

24 



Then stooped the Lord, and He called the good 
sea up to Him, 
And 'stablished his borders unto all eternity, 
That such as have no pleasure 
For to praise the Lord by measure, 
They may enter into galleons and serve Him on 
the sea. 

mn, wind, and cloud shall fail not from the face 
of it, 
Stinging, ringing spindrift, nor the fulmar flying 
free ; 
And the ships shall go abroad 
To the glory of the Lord 
IVho heard the silly sailor-folk and gave them 
bach their sea ! 



THE MERCHANTMEN. 

King Solomon drew merchantmen, 

Because of his desire 
For peacocks, apes, and ivory. 

From Tarshish unto Tyre : 
With cedars out of Lebanon 

Which Hiram rafted down, 
But we be only sailormen 

That use in London town. 

Coastwise — cross-seas — round the world and back 
again — 
IVhere the flaw shall head us or the full 
Trade suits — 
Plain-sail — storm-sail — lay your board and tack 
again — 
And that's the way we'll pay Paddy Doyle fo^ 
his boots! 

We bring no store of ingots. 

Of spice or precious stones, 

But that we have we gathered 

With sweat and aching bones: 
26 



In flame beneath the tropics, 

In frost upon the floe, 
And jeopardy of every wind 

1 hat does between them go. 

And some we got by purchase. 

And some we had by trade, 
And some we found by courtesy 

Of pike and carronade, 
At midnight, 'mid-sea meetings, 

For charity to keep. 
And light the rolling homeward-bound 

That rode a foot too deep. 

By sport of bitter weather 

We're walty, strained, and scarred 
From the kentledge on the kelson 

To the slings upon the yard. 
Six oceans had their will of us 

To carry all away — 
Our galley 's in the Baltic, 

And our boom 's in Mossel Bay! 

We've floundered off the Texel, 

Awash with sodden deals. 
We've slipped from Valparaiso 

With the Norther at our heel$' 



We've ratched beyond the Cressets 
That tusk the Southern Pole, 

And dipped our gunnels under 
To the dread Agulhas roll. 

Beyond all outer charting 

We sailed where none have sailed. 
And saw the land-lights burning 

On islands none have hailed; 
Our hair stood up for wonder, 

But, when the night was done, 
There danced the deep to windward 

Blue-empty 'neath the sun! 

Strange consorts rode beside us 

And brought us evil luck; 
The witch-fire climbed our channelss 

And danced on vane and truck: 
Till, through the red tornado, 

That lashed us nigh to blind. 
We saw The Dutchman plunging, 

Full canvas, head to wind ! 

We've heard the Midnight Leadsman 

That calls the black deep down — 

Ay, thrice we've heard The Swimmer, 

The Thing that may not drown. 
28 



On frozen bunt and gasket 
The sleet-cloud Jrave her hosts, 

When, manned by more than signed with us, 
We passed the Isle o' Ghosts ! 

And north, amid the hummocks, 

A biscuit-toss below, 
We met the silent shallop 

That frighted whalers know; 
For, down a cruel ice-lane, 

That opened as he sped, 
We saw dead Henry Hudson 

Steer, North by West, his deaOe 

So dealt God's waters with us 

Beneath the roaring skies, 
So walked His signs and marvels 

All naked to our eyes : 
But we were heading homeward 

With trade to lose or make — 
Good Lord, they slipped behind us 

In the tailing of our wake! 

Let go, let go the anchors; 

Now shamed at heart are we 
To bring so poor a cargo home 

That had for gift the sea! 



Let go the great bow-anchors — 
Ah, fools were we and blind — 

The worst we baled with utter toil. 
The best we left behind! 

Coastwise — cross-seas — round the world and back 
again, 
Whither the flaw shall fail us or the Trades 
drive down : 
Plain-sail — storm-sail — lay your board and tack 
again — 
And all to bring a cargo up to London Town I 



30 



McANDREW'S HYMN. 

Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shad- 
ow of a dream, 
An', taught by time, I tak' it so — exceptin' always 

Steam. 
From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy 

Hand, O God- 
Predestination in the stride o' yon connectin'-rod. 
John Calvin might ha' forged the same — enorr- 

mous, certain, slow — 
Ay, wrought it in the furnace-flame — my **Insti- 

tutio." 
I cannot get my sleep to-night; old bones are hard 

to please; 
I'll stand the middle watch up here — alone wi* 

God an' these 
My engines, after ninety days o' race an' rack an* 

strain 
Through all the seas of all Thy world, slam-bang- 

m' home again. 

3^ 



Siam-bang too much — they knock a wee — the 

crosshead-gibs are loose; 
But thirty thousand mile o' sea has gied them fair 

excuse. . . . 
Fine, clear an' dark — a full-draught breeze, wi' 

Ushant out o' sight, 
An' Ferguson relievin' Hay. Old girl, ye'll walk 

to-night! 
His wife's at Plymouth. . . . Seventy — One — Twty 

— Three since he began — 
Three turns for Mistress Ferguson. ... an' whoV 

to blame the man ? 
There's none at any port for me, by drivin' fast o 

slow, 
Since Elsie Campbell went to Thee, Lord, thirty 

years ago. 
(The year the Sarah Sands was burned. Oh 

roads we used to tread, 
Fra' Maryhill to Pollokshaws — fra' Govan to Park- 
head!) 
Not but they're ceevil on the Board. Ye'll hear 

Sir Kenneth say : 
*'Good morrn, McAndrews! Back again? An* 

how's your bilge to-day ?" 

Miscallin' technicalities but handin' me my 

chair 

32 



To drink Madeira wi' three Earls — the auld Fleet 

Engineer, 
That started as a boiler- whelp — when steam and 

he were low. 
I mind the time we used to serve a broken pipe 

wi' tow. 
Ten pound was all the pressure then — Eh! Eh! — 

a man wad drive; 
An' here, our workin' gauges give one hunder' 

fifty-five ! 
We're creepin' on wi' each new rig — less weight 

an' larger power: 
There'll be the loco-boiler next an' thirty knots an 

hour! 
Thirtv an* more. What I ha' seen since ocean* 

steam began 
Leaves me no doot for the machine: but what 

about the man ? 
The man that counts, wi' all his runs, one million 

mile o' sea: 
Four time the span from earth to moon. . . . How 

far, O Lord, from Thee ? 
That wast beside him night an' day. Ye mind 

my first typhoon ? 

\t scoughed the skipper on his way to jock wi' the 

saloon. 

33 



Three feet were on the stokehold floor — just slap- 
pin' to an' fro — 
An' cast me on a furnace-door. I have the marks 

to show. 
Marks! I ha' marks o' more than burns — deep in 

my soul an' black, 
An' times like this, when things go smooth, my 

wickudness comes back. 
The sins o' four and forty years, all up an' down 

the seas, 
Clack an' repeat like valves half-fed. . . . Forgie's 

our trespasses. 
Nights when I'd come on deck to mark, wi' envy 

in my gaze. 
The couples kittlin' in the dark between the funnel 

stays ; 
Years when I raked the ports wi' pride to fill 

my cup o' wrong- 
Judge not, O Lord, my steps aside at Gay Street 

in Hong-Kong! 
Blot out the wastrel hours of mine in sin when I 

abode — 
Jane Harrigan's an' Number Nine, The Reddick 

an' Grant Road! 
An' waur than all — my crownin' sin — rank blas- 
phemy an' wild. 

34 



I was not four and twenty then — Ye wadna judge 
a child ? 

I'd seen the Tropics first that run — new fruit, riew 
smells, new air — 

How could I tell — blind-fou wi' sun — the Deil was 
lurkin' there ? 

By day like playhouse-scenes the shore slid past 
our sleepy eyes ; 

By night those soft, lasceevious stars leered from 
those velvet skies. 

In port (we used no cargo-steam) I'd daunder 
down the streets — 

An ijjit grinnin' in a dream — for shells an' parra- 
keets, 

An' walkin'-sticks o' carved bamboo an' blowfish 
stuffed an' dried — 

Fillin' my bunk wi' rubbishry the Chief put over- 
side. 

Till, off Sumbawa Head, Ye mind, I heard a land- 
breeze ca' 

Milk- warm wi' breath o' spice an' bloom: "Mc- 
Andrews, come awa' ! " 

Firm, clear an' low — no haste, no hate — the 
ghostly whisper went. 

Just statin' eevidential facts beyon' all argu- 
ment: 

3$ 



" Your mither's God's a graspin' deil, the shadow 

o' yoursel', 
"Got out o' books by meenisters clean daft on 

Heaven an' Hell. 
"They mak' him in the Broomielaw, o' Glasgie 

cold an' dirt, 
"A jealous, pridefu' fetich, lad, that's only strong 

to hurt, 
" Ye'll not go back to Him again an' kiss His red- 
hot rod, 
"But come wi' Us" (Now, who were They?) 

"an' know the Leevin' God, 
"That does not kipper souls for sport or break a 

life in jest, 
"But swells the ripenin' cocoanuts an' ripes the 

woman's breast." 
An' there it stopped: cut off: no more; that quiet. 

certain voice — 
For me, six months o' twenty-four, to leave oi 

take at choice. 
'Twas on me like a thunderclap — it racked me 

through an' through — 
Temptation past the show o' speech, unnamable 

an' new — 

The Sin against the Holy Ghost ? • . An' under 

all, our screw. 

36 



That storm blew by but left behind her anchor- 

shiftin' swell, 
Thou knowest all my heart an' mind, Thou know- 

est. Lord, 1 fell. 
Third on the Mary Gloster then, and first that 

night in Hell! 
Yet was Thy hand beneath my head: about my 

feet Thy care — 
Fra' Deli clear to Torres Strait, the trial o' 

despair, 
But when we touched the Barrier Reef Thy answer 

to my prayer! 
We dared na run that sea by night but lay an' 

held our fire. 
An' 1 was drowzin' on the hatch — sick — sick wi' 

doubt an' tire : 
*' Better the sight of eyes that see than wanderin* 

o' desire ! " 
Ye mind that word ? Clear as our gongs — again, 

an' once again. 
When rippin' down through coral-trash ran out 

our moorin'-chain; 
An' by Thy Grace I had the Light to see my duty 

plain. 

Light on the engine-room — no more — clear as our 

carbons burn. 
4 37 



I've lost it since a thousand times, but never 

past return. 
• « . • • • 

Obsairve! Per annum we'll have here two thou^ 

sand souls aboard — 
Think not I dare to justify myself before the Lord, 
But — average fifteen hunder' souls safe-borne fra 

port to port — 
I am o' service to my kind. Ye wadna' blame the 

thought } 
Maybe they steam from grace to wrath — to sin by 

folly led,— 
It isna mine to judge their path — their lives are op 

my head. 
Mine at the last — when all is done it all comes 

back to me, 
The fault that leaves six thousand ton a log upon 

the sea. 
We'll tak' one stretch — three weeks an' odd by 

any road ye steer — 
Fra' Cape Town east to Wellington — ye need ^n 

engineer. 
Fail there — ye've time to weld your shaft — ay, eat 

it, ere ye're spoke, 

Or make Kerguelen under sail — three jiggers 

burned wi' smoke! 
38 



An' home again, the Rio run : it's no child's play 

to go 
Steamin' to bell for fourteen days o' snow an' floe 

an' blow — 
The bergs like kelpies overside that girn an' tarn 

an' shift 
Whaur, grindin' like the Mills o' God, goes by the 

big South drift. 
(Hail, snow an' ice that praise the Lord : I've met 

them at their work, 
An' wished we had anither route or they anither 

kirk.) 
Yon's strain, hard strain, o' head an' hand, for 

though Thy Power brings 
All skill to naught, Ye'll understand a man must 

think o' things. 
Then, at the last, we'll get to port an' hoist their 

baggage clear — 
The passengers, wi' gloves an' canes — an' this is 

what I'll hear: 
''Well, thank ye for a pleasant voyage. The ten- 
der's comin' now." 
While I go testin' follower-bolts an' watch the 

skipper bow. 

They've words for everyone but me — shake hands 

wi' half the :rew, 
39 



Except the dour Scots engineer, the man they 

never knew. 
An' yet I like the wark for all we've dam' few 

pickin's here — 
No pension, an' the most we earn's four hunder* 

pound a year. 
Better myself abroad ? Maybe. I'd sooner starve 

than sail 
Wi' such as call a snifter-rod ross. . . . French 

for nightingale. 
Commeesion on my stores.? Some do; but I can 

not afford 
To lie like stewards wi' patty-pans. I'm older 

than the Board. 
A bonus on the coal 1 save ? Ou ay, the Scots are 

close, 
But when I grudge the strength Ye gave I'll 

grudge their food to those. 
(There's bricks that I might recommend — an' dink 

the fire-bars cruel. 
No! Welsh — Wangarti at the worst — an' damn all 

patent fuel !) 
Inventions ? Ye must stay in port to mak' a 

patent pay. 

My Deeferential Valve-Gear taught me how that 

business lay, 

40 



I blame no chaps wi' clearer head for aught they 

make or sell. 
/ found that I could not invent an' look to these— 

as well. 
So, wrestled wi' Apollyon — Nah!— fretted like a 

bairn — 
But burned the workin'-plans last run wi' all I 

hoped to earn. 
Ye know how hard an Idol dies, an' what that 

meant to me — 
E'en tak' it for a sacrifice acceptable to Thee. . . . 
Below there ! Oiler ! What's your wark ? Ye 

find her runnin' hard} 
Ye needn't swill the cap wi' oil — this isn't the 

Cunard. 
Ye thought ? Ye are not paid to think. Go, sweat 

that off again ! 
Fck! Tck! It's deeficult to sweer nor tak' The 

Name in vain! 
Men, ay an' women, call me stern. Wi' these to 

oversee 
Ye'll note I've little time to burn on social repartee. 
The bairns see what their elders miss; they'll hunt 

me to an' fro, 
Till for the sake of— -well, a kiss — I tak' 'em down 

below. 

41 



That minds me of our Viscount loon — Sir 

Kenneth's kin — the chap 
Wi' russia leather tennis-shoon an' spar-decked 

yachtin'-cap. 
I showed him round last week, o'er all — an' at the 

last says he : 
"Mister McAndrews, don't you think steam spoils 

romance at sea?" 
Damned ijjit! I'd been doon that morn to see 

what ailed the throws, 
Manholin', on my back — the cranks three inches 

from my nose. 
Romance! Those first-class passengers they like 

it very well, 
Printed an' bound in little books; but why don't 

poets tell ? 
I'm sick of all their quirks an' turns — the loves an' 

doves they dream — 
Lord, send a man like Robbie Burns to sing the 

Song o' Steam ! 
To match wi' Scotia's noblest speech yon orchestra 

sublime 
Whaurto — uplifted like the Just — the tail-rods mark 

the time. 
The crank-throws give the double-bass ; the feed- 
pump sobs an' heaves; 
42 



An' now the main eccentric s start their quarrel on 
the sheaves. 

Her time, her own appointed time, the rocking 
link-head bides, 

Till — hear that note? — the rod's return whings 
glimmerin' through the guides. 

They're all awa! True beat, full power, the 
clangin' chorus goes 

<21ear to the tunnel where they sit, my purrin' 
dynamoes. 

interdependence absolute, foreseen, ordained, de- 
creed. 

To work, Ye'll note, at any tilt an' every rate o' 
speed. 

Fra skylight-lift to furnace-bars, backed, bolted, 
braced an' stayed, 

An' singin' like the Mornin' Stars for joy that they 
are made; 

While, out o' touch o' vanity, the sweatin' thrust- 
block says: 

**Not unto us the praise, or man — not unto us the 
praise! " 

Now, a' together, hear them lift their lesson — theirs 
an' mine: 

**Law, Orrder, Duty an' Restraint, Obedience, Dis- 
cipline! " 

45 



Mill, forge an' try-pit taught them that when roar . 

in' they arose, 
An' whiles I wonder if a soul was gied them wi' 

the blows. 
Oh for a man to weld it then, in one trip-hammer 

strain, 
Till even first-class passengers could tell the mean- 
in' plain! 
But no one cares except mysel' that serve an' un- 
derstand 
My seven thousand horse-power here. Eh, Lord! 

They're grand — they're grand! 
Uplift am I ? When first in store the new-made 

beasties stood. 
Were Ye cast down that breathed the Word de- 

clarin' all things good ? 
Not so! O' that warld-liftin' joy no after-fall 

could vex, 
Ye've left a glimmer still to cheer the Man— the 

Arrtifex ! 
That holds, in spite o' knock and scale, o' friction, 

waste an' slip, 
An' by that light — now, mark my word — we'll 

build the Perfect Ship. 
ril never last to judge her lines or take her curve — 

not I. 

44 



But I ha' iived an' 1 ha* worked. All thanks to 

Thee, Most High! 
An' I ha' done what I ha' done — ^judge Thou if ill 

or well — 
Always Thy Grace preventin' me. . . . 

Losh ! Yon's the ' ' Stand by " bell. 
Pilot so soon ? His flare it is. The mornin'-watch 

is set. 
Well, God be thanked, as I was sayin', I'm no 

Pelagian yet. 
Now I'll tak' on. . . . 

'Morrn, Ferguson. Man, have ye ever thought 
What your good leddy costs in coal ? , . , I'll 

"^rn 'em down to port. 



45 



THE MIRACLES. 

I SENT a message to my dear — 
A thousand leagues and more to her- 

The dumb sea-levels thrilled to hear, 
And Lost Atlantis bore to her. 

Behind my message hard I came, 
And nigh had found a grave for me; 

But that 1 launched of steel and flame 
Did war against the wave for me. 

Uprose the deep, by gale on gale, 
To bid me change my mind again-= 

He broke his teeth along my rail, 
And, roaring, swung behind again. 

I stayed the sun at noon to tell 

My way across the waste of it; 

1 read the storm before it fell 

And made the better haste of it. 
46 



Afar, I hailed the land at night — 

The towers I built had heard of me — 

And, ere my rocket reached its height, 
Had flashed my Love the word of me. 

Earth gave her chosen men of strength 
(They lived and strove and died for me) 

To drive my road a nation's length, 
And toss the miles aside for me. 

I snatched their toil to serve my needs — 
Too slow their fleetest flew for me — 

I tired twenty smoking steeds, 
And bade them bait a new for me. 

I sent the lightnings forth to see 
Where hour by hour she waited me. 

Among ten million one was she, 
And surely all men hated me! 

Dawn ran to meet us at my goal — 
Ah, day no tongue shall tell again I — 

And little folk of little soul 
Rose up to buy and sell again I 



47 



THE NATIVE-BORN. 

We've drunk to the Queen — God bless herl- 

We've drunk to our mothers' land; 
We've drunk to our English brother 

(But he does not understand) ; 
We've drunk to the wide creation, 

And the Cross swings low to the morn, 
Last toast, and of obligation, 

A health to the Native-born ! 



They change their skies above them, 
But not their hearts that roam ! 

We learned from our wistful mothers 
To call old England '' home " ; 

We read of the English sky-lark, 
- Of the spring in the English lanes. 

But we screamed with the painted lories 

As we rode on the dusty plains] 
48 



They passed with their old-world legends— 

Their tales of wrong and dearth — 
Our fathers held by purchase, 

But we by the right of birth ; 
Our heart's where they rocked our cradle. 

Our love where we spent our toil, 
And our faith and our hope and our honour 

We pledge to our native soil! 

I charge you charge your glasses — 

I charge you drink with me 
fo the men of the Four New Nations, 

And the Islands of the Sea — 
To the last least lump of coral 

That none may stand outside. 
And our own good pride shall teach us 

To praise our comrade's pride. 

To the hush of the breathless morning 

On the thin, tin, crackling roofs. 
To the haze of the burned back-ranges 

And the dust of the shoeless hoofs— 
To the risk of a death by drowning, 

To the risk of a death by drouth — 
To the men of a million acres, 

To the Sons of the Golden South. 
49 



To the Sons of the Golden South, {Stand up /) 

And the life we live and know, 
Let a fellow sing o' the little things he caret 

about, 
If a fellow fights for the little things he care% 
about 
With the weight of a single blow I 

To the smoke of a hundred coasters, 

To the sheep on a thousand hills, 
To the sun that never blisters, 

To the rain that never chills — 
To the land of the waiting springtime, 

To our five-meal, meat-fed men. 
To the tall deep-bosomed women, 

And the children nine and ten! 



And the children nine and ten, {Stand up /) 

And the life we live and know, 
Let a fellow sing o' the little things he care% 

about, 
If a fellow fights for the little things he cares 

about 

With the weight of a two-fold blow I 

50 



To the far-flung fenceless prairie 

Where the quick cloud-shadows trail, 
To our neighbour's barn in the offing 

And the line of the new-cut rail; 
To the plough in her league-long furrow 

With the gray Lake gulls behind — 
To the weight of a half-year's winter 

And the warm wet western wind! 

To the home of the floods and thunder, 

To her pale dry healing blue — 
To the lift of the great Cape combers, 

And the smell of the baked Karroo. 
To the growl of the sluicing stamp-head— 

To the reef and the water-gold, 
To the last and the largest Empire, 

To the map that is half unrolled! 

To our dear dark foster-mothers. 

To the heathen songs they sung — 
To the heathen speech we babbled 

Ere we came to the white man's tongue. 
To the cool of our deep verandas — 

To the blaze of our jewelled main, 
To the night, to the palms in the moonlight 

And the fire-fly in the caneJ 



To the hearth of our people's people- 
To her well-ploughed windy sea, 

To the hush of our dread high-altars 
Where the Abbey makes us We; 

To the grist of the slow-ground ages, 
To the gain that is yours and mine — 

To the Bank of the Open Credit, 
To the Power-house of the Line! 

We've drunk to the Queen — God bless hei '- 

We've drunk to our mothers' land; 
We've drunk to our English brother 

(And we hope he'll understand) 
We've drunk as much as we re aDle, 

And the Cross swings low to the mom; 
Last toast — and your foot on the table ! — 

A health to the Native-born ! 

A health to the Native-born, {Stand up /) 

We're six white men arow, 
All hound to sing o' the little things we car^ 

about, 
All bound to fight for the little things we car^^ 

about 
With the weight of a six-fold blow ! 
By the might of our cable-tow, ( Take hands /) 

52 



From the Orkneys to the Horn, 
All round the world {and a little loop to pull 
it by), 
All round the world [and a little strap to buckle 
it), 
A health to the Native-born ! 



5» 



THE KING. 

** Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said; 

"With bone well carved he went away, 
Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead, 

And jasper tips the spear to-day. 
Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance, 
And he with these. Farewell, Romance!" 

** Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed; 

"We lift the weight of flatling years; 
The caverns of the mountain side 

Hold him who scorns our hutted piers. 
Lost hills whereby we dare not dwell. 
Guard ye his rest. Romance, farewell ! " 

*' Farewell, Romance ! " the Soldier spoke; 

*' By sleight of sword we may not win, 
But scuffle 'mid uncleanly smoke 

Of arquebus and culverin. 
Honour is lost, and none may tell 
Who paid good blows. Romance, farewell! 

5^ 



** Farewell, Romance I " the Traders cried; 

'* Our keels ha' lain with every sea; 
The dull-returning wind and tide 

Heave up the wharf where we would be; 
The known and noted breezes swell 
Our trudging sail. Romance, farewell! " 

**Good-bye» Romance! " the Skipper said; 

** He vanished with the coal we burn; 
Our dial marks full steam ahead, 

Our speed is timed to half a turn. 
Sure as the tidal trains we ply 
'Twixt port and port. Romance, good-bye ! " 

** Romance! " the Season-tickets mourn, 

''He never ran to catch his train, 
But passed with coach and guard and horn — 

And left the local — late again ! " 
Confound Romance!" . . . And all unseen 
Romance brought up the nine-fifteen. 

His hand was on the lever laid, 

His oil-can soothed the worrying cranks, 
His whistle waked the snowbound grade, 

His fog-horn cut the reeking Banks; 
In dock and deep and mine and mill 
The Boy-god reckless laboured stilL 

is 



Robed, crowned and throned, he wove his 
spell, 
Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke 
curled, 
With unconsidered miracle, 

Hedged in a backward-gazing world; 
Then taught his chosen bard to say : 
**The King was with us — ^yesterday!" 



THE RHYME OF THE THREE SEALERS. 

j4way by the lands of the Japaneet 

When the paper lanterns glow 
And the crews of all the shipping drink 

In the house of Blood Street Joe^ 
At twilight, when the landward breeze 

Brings up the harbour noise. 
And ebb of Yokohama Bay 

Swigs chattering through the buoys, 
In Cisco's Dewdrop Dining Rooms 

They tell the tale anew 
Of a hidden sea and a hidden fights 
When the Baltic ran from the Northern Light 

And the Stralsund fought the two I 

Now this is the Law of the Muscovite, that he 

proves with shot and steel, 
When ye come by his isles in the Smoky Sea ye 

must not take the seal, 
Where the gray sea goes nakedly between the 

weed-hung shelves, 
57 



And the little blue fox he is bred for his skin 

and the seal they breed for themselves; 
For when the matkas seek the shore to drop thei! 

pups aland, 
The great man-seal haul out of the sea, aroanng, 

band by band ; 
And when the first September gales have slaked 

their rutting- wrath, 
The great man-seal haul back to the sea and no 

man knows their path. 
Then dark they lie and stark they lie — rookery, 

dune, and floe, 
And the Northern Lights come down o' nights to 

dance with the houseless snow. 
And God who clears the grounding berg and steers 

the grinding floe, 
He hears the cry of the little kit-fox and the lem- 
ming on the snow. 
But since our women must walk gay and money 

buys their gear. 
The sealing-boats they filch that way at hazard 

year by year. 
English they be and Japanee that hang on the 

Brown Bear's flank, 

And some be Scot, but the worst, God wot, and 

the boldest thieves, be Yank! 
5S 



ft was the sealer Northern Light, to the 5mokj 
Seas she bore. 

With a stovepipe stuck from a starboard port and 
the Russian flag at her fore. 

(Baltic, Stralsund, and Northern Light— oh! they 
were birds of a feather — 

Slipping away to the Smoky Seas, three seal- 
thieves together!) 

And at last she came to a sandy cove and the Bal- 
tic lay therein, 

But her men were up with the herding seal to 
drive and club and skin. 

There were fifteen hundred skins abeach, cool pelt 
and proper fur. 

When the Northern Light drove into the bight and 
the sea-mist drove with her. 

The Baltic called her men and weighed — she could 
not choose but run — 

For a stovepipe seen through the closing mist, it 
shows like a four-inch gun 

(And loss it is that is sad as death to lose both trip 
and ship 

And lie for a rotting contraband on Vladivostock 
slip). 

She turned and dived in the sea-smother as a rab- 
bit dives in the whins, 
59 



And the Northern Light sent up her boats to stea/ 
the stolen skins. 

They had not brought a load to side or slid their 
hatches clear, 

When they were aware of a sloop-of-war, ghost- 
white and very near. 

Her flag she showed, and her guns she showed — 
three of them, black, abeam. 

And a funnel white with the crusted salt, but 
never a show of steam. 

There was no time to man the brakes, they 
knocked the shackle free. 

And the Northern Light stood out again, goose- 
winged to open sea. 



(For life it is that is worse than death, by force of 

Russian law 
To work in the mines of mercury that loose the 

teeth in your jaw !) 
They had not run a mile from shore — they heard 

no shots behind — 
When the skipper smote his hand on his thigh and 

threw her up in the wind: 
Bluffed — raised out on a bluff," said he, *'for if 

my name's Tom Hall, 



it 



60 



•You must set a thief to catch a thief— and a thief 

has caught us all! 
" By every butt in Oregon and every spar in Maine, 
"The hand that spilled the wind from her sail was 

the hand of Reuben Paine! 
**He has rigged and trigged her with paint and 

spar, and, faith, he has faked her well — 
*' But I'd know the Stralsund's deckhouse yet from 

here to the booms o' Hell. 
" Oh, once we ha' met at Baltimore, and twice on 

Boston pier, 
'* But the sickest day for you, Reuben Paine, was 

the day that you came here — 
" The day that you came here, my lad, to scare us 

from our seal 
**With your funnel made o' your painted cloth, 

and your guns o' rotten deal ! 
'* Ring and blow for the Baltic now, and head hei 

back to the bay, 
"For we'll come into, the game again with a 

double deck to play ! " 

They rang and blew the sealers' call — the poaching 

cry o' the sea — 

And they raised the Baltic out of the mist, and an 

angry ship was she: 
6i 



And blind they groped through the whirling 
white, and blind to the bay again, 

Till they heard the creak of the Stralsund's boom 
and the clank of her mooring-chain. 

They laid them down by bitt and boat, their pis- 
tols in their belts. 

And: **Will you fight for it, Reuben Paine, or 
will you share the pelts ? " 

A dog-toothed laugh laughed Reuben Paine, and 

bared his flenching knife. 
*' Yea, skin for skin, and all that he hath a man 

will give for his life ; 
But I've six thousand skins below, and Yeddo 

Port to see, 
And there's never a law of God or man runs north 

of Fifty-Three. 
So go in peace to the naked seas with empty holds 

to fill. 
And I'll be good to your seal this catch, as many as 

I shall kill." 

'Answered the snap of a closing lock and the jar of 

a gun-butt slid, 
But the tender fog shut fold on fold to hide the 

wrong they did. 

02 



The weeping fog rolled fold on fold the wrath of 

man to cloak, 
And the flame-spurts pale ran down the rail as 

the sealing-rifles spoke. 
The bullets bit on bend and butt, the splinter sliv- 
ered free, 
(Little they trust to sparrow-dust that stop the 

seal in his sea!) 
The thick smoke hung and would not shift, leaden 

it lay and blue, 
But three were down on the Baltic's deck and two 

of the Stralsund's crew. 
An arm's length out and overside the banked fog 

held them bound; 
But, as they heard or groan or word, they fired at 

the sound. 
For one cried out on the name of God, and one to 

have him cease; 
And the questing volley found them both and 

bade them hold their peace. 
And one called out on a heathen joss and one on 

Ahe Virgin's Name; 
And the schooling bullet leaped across and khowed 

them whence they came. 
And in the waiting silences the rudder whined be- 
neath, 

63 



And each man drew his watchful breath slow 

taken 'tween the teeth — 
Trigger and ear and eye acock, knit brow and 

hard-drawn lips — 
Bracing his feet by chock and cleat for the rolling 

of the ships : 
Till they heard the cough of a wounded man that 

fought in the fog for breath, 
Till they heard the torment of Reuben Paine that 

wailed upon his death : 

"The tides they'll go through Fundy Race but I'll 
go never more 

" And see the hogs from ebb-tide mark turn scan> 
pering back to shore. 

*' No more I'll see the trawlers drift below the Bass 
Rock ground, 

"Or watch the tall Fall steamer lights tear blaz- 
ing up the Sound. 

"Sorrow is me, in a lonely sea and a sinful fight I 
fall, 

" But if there's law o' God or man you'll swing 
for it yet, Tom Hall! " 

Tom Hall stood up by the quarter-rail. "You* 

words in your teeth, " said he< 
64 



** There's never a law of God or man runs north 

of Fifty Three. 
"So go in grace with Him to face, and an ill- 
spent life behind, 
"And I'll take care o' your widows, Rube, as 

many as 1 shall find." 
A Stralsund man shot blind and large, and a waf 

lock Finn was he, 
And he hit Tom Hall with a bursting ball a hand's- 

breadth over the knee. 
Tom Hall caught hold by the topping-lift, and sat 

him down with an oath, 
•'You'll wait a little. Rube," he said, "the Devil 

has called for both. 
'" The Devil is driving both this tide, and the kill- 
ing-grounds are close, 
" And we'll go up to the Wrath of God as the 

holluschickie goes. 
"O men, put back your guns again and lay 

your rifles by, 
** We've fought our fight, and the best are down. 

Let up and let us die! 
"Qyit firing, by the bow there— quit! Call off 

the Baltic's crew! 
** You're sure of Hell as me or Rube — but wait tiJU 

we get through. " 
65 



There went no word between the ships, but thick 

and quick and loud 
The life-blood drummed on the dripping decks, 

with the fog-dew from the shroud, 
The sea-pull drew them side by side, gunnel to 

gunnel laid, 
And they felt the sheerstrakes pound and clear, 

but never a word was said. 



Then Reuben Paine cried out again before his 

spirit passed: 
" Have I followed the sea for thirty years to die in 

the dark at last ? 
'* Curse on her work that has nipped me here 

with a shifty trick unkind — 
" I have gotten my death where I got my bread, 

but I dare not face it blind. 
" Curse on the fog ! Is there never a wind of all 

the winds I knew 
* To clear the smother from off my chest, and let 

me look at the blue ? " 
The good fog heard — like a splitten sail, to left and 

right she tore, 
And they saw the sun-dogs in the haze and the 

seal upon the shore. 



Silver and gray ran spit and bay to meet the steel- 
backed tide, 

And pinched and white in the clearing light the 
crews stared overside. 

O rainbow-gay the red pools lay that swilled and 
spilled and spread, 

And gold, raw gold, the spent shell rolled between 
' the careless dead — 

The dead that rocked so drunkenwise to weather 
and to lee, 

And they saw the work their hands had done as 
God had bade them see! 



And a little breeze blew over the rail that made 

the headsails lift, 
But no man stood by wheel or sheet, and they let 

the schooners drift. 
And the rattle rose in Reuben's throat and he cast 

his soul with a cry, 
And ''Gone already ? " Tom Hall he said. '* Then 

it's time for me to die." 
His eyes were heavy with great sleep and yearn-. 

ing for the land. 
And he spoke as a man that talks in dreams, his 

wornd beneath his hand. 

67 



''Oh, there comes no good in the westering wind 

that backs against the sun ; 
"Wash down the decks — they're all too red — and 

share the skins and run, 
"Baltic, Stralsund, and Northern Light, — clean 

share and share for all, 
"You'll find the fleets off Tolstoi Mees, but you 

will not find Tom Hall. 
" Evil he did in shoal- water and blacker sin on the 

deep, 
"But now he's sick of watch and trick, and now 

he'll turn and sleep. 
'* He'll have no more of the crawling sea that 

made him suffer so, 
'* But he'll lie down on the killing-grounds where 

the holluschickie go. 
" And west you'll turn and south again, beyond the 

sea-fog's rim, 
"And tell the Yoshiwara girls to burn a stick for 

him. 
"And you'll not weight him by the heels and 

dump him overside, 
" But carry him up to the sand-hollows to die as 

Bering died, 

" And make a place for Reuben Paine that knows 

the fight was fair, 
68 



' And leave the two that did ^q wrong to talk it 
over there!" 



Half-steam ahead by guess and lead, for the sun 

is mostly veiled — 
Through fog to fog, by luck and log, sail ye as 

Bering sailed ; 
And, if the light shall lift aright to give your land- 
fall plain. 
North and by west, from Zapne Crest, ye raise 

the Crosses Twain. 
Fair marks are they to the inner bay, the reckless 

poacher knows, 
What time the scarred see-catchie lead their sleek 

seraglios. 
Ever they hear the floe-pack clear, and the blast of 

the old bull-whale. 
And the deep seal-roar that beats off shore above 

the loudest gale. 
Ever they wait the winter's hate as the thundering 

boorga calls. 
Where northward look they to St. George, and 

westward to St. Paul's. 

Ever they greet the hunted fleet — lone heels off 

headlands drear — 
6 69 



IVhen the sealing-schoonersflit that way at Imiara 
year hy year. 

Ever in Yokohama "Port men tell the tale anew 
Of a hidden sea and a hidden fight y 
When the Baltic ran from the Northern Light 

And the Stralsund fought the two I 



THE DERELICT. 

*' And reports the derelict Mary Pollock still at sea." 

Shipping Ntws. 

I was the staunches f of our fleet 

Till the Sea rose beneath our feet 
Unheralded, in hatred past all measure. 

Into his -pits he stamped my crew, 

Buffeted, blinded, bound and threw; 
Bidding me eyeless wait upon his pleasure. 

Man made me, and my will 

Is to my maker still, 
Whom now the currents con, the rollers steer — 

Lifting forlorn to spy 

Trailed smoke along the sky, 
Falling afraid lest any keel come near. 

Wrenched as the lips of thirst, 

Wried, dried, and split and burst, 

Bone-bleached my decks, wind-scoured to the 

graining; 

71 



And, jarred at every roll, 
The gear that was my soul 
Answers the anguish of my beams' complaining. 

For life that crammed me full, 

Gangs of the prying gull 
That shriek and scrabble on the riven hatches. 

For roar that dumbed the gale 

My hawse-pipes guttering wail, 
Sobbing my heart out through the uncounted 
watches. 

Blind in the hot blue ring 

Through all my points I swing — 
Swing and return to shift the sun anew. 

Blind in my well-known sky 

I hear the stars go by. 
Mocking the prow that can not hold one true ! 

White on my wasted path 

Wave after wave in wrath 

Frets 'gainst his fellow, warring where to send 

me. 

Flung forward, heaved aside, 

Witless and dazed I bide 

The mercy of the comber that shall end me. 

71 



North where the bergs careen, 
The spray of seas unseen 
Smokes round my head and freezes in the fall- 
ing; 
South where the corals breed, 
The footless, floating weed 
Folds me and fouls me, strake on strake upcrawK 
ing. 

I that was clean to run 

My race against the sun — 
Strength on the deep, am bawd to all disaster — 

Whipped forth by night to meet 

My sister's careless feet. 
And with a kiss betray her to my master I 

Man made me, and my will 

Is to my maker still — 
To him and his, our peoples at their pier: 

Lifting in hope to spy 

Trailed smoke along the sky; 
Falling afraid lest any keel come nearl 



72 



THE SONG OF THE BANJO. 

You couldn't pack a Broadwood half a mile — 

You mustn't leave a fiddle in the damp — 
You couldn't raft an organ up the Nile, 

And play it in an Equatorial swamp. 
/ travel with the cooking-pots and pails — 

I'm sandwiched 'tween the coffee and the 
pork^ — 
And when the dusty column checks and tails, 

You should hear me spur the rearguard to a 
walk! 

With my ** Pilly-willy-winky-winky popp ! " 
[O it's any tune that comes into my 
head!] 
So I keep 'em moving forward till they 
drop ; 
So I play 'em up to water and to bed. 

In the silence of the camp before the fight, 

When it's good to make your will and say 

your prayer, 

^4 



You can hear my strumpty-tumpty overnight 
Explaining ten to one was always fair. 

I'm the prophet of the Utterly Absurd, 
Of the Patently Impossible and Vain — 

And when the Thing that Couldn't has occurred, 
Give me time to change my leg and go again. 

With my " Tumpa - tumpa - tumpa - turn - pa 
tump ! ' ' 
In the desert where the dung-fed camp- 
smoke curled 
fhere was never voice before us till I led 
our lonely chorus, 
I— the war-drum of the White Man round 
the world ! 

By the bitter road the Younger Son must tread. 

Ere he win to hearth and saddle of his own,— 
'Mid the riot of the shearers at the shed. 

In the silence of the herder's hut alone — 
In the twilight, on a bucket upside down, 

Hear me babble what the weakest won't con- 
fess — 
1 am Memory and Torment— I am Town! 

I am all that ever went with evening dress/ 

75 



With my " Tunk-a tunha-tunha-tunka" 
tunk! " 
[So the lights — the London lights — grov^ 
near and plain !] 
So I rowel 'em afresh towards the Devil and 
the Flesh, 
Till I bring my broken rankers home again. 

In desire of many marvels over sea, 

Where the new-raised tropic city sweats and 
roars, 
I have sailed with Young Ulysses from the quay 

Till the anchor rumbled down on stranger 
shores. 
He is blooded to the open and the sky. 

He is taken in a snare that shall not fail. 
He shall hear me singing strongly, till he die, 

Like the shouting of a backstay in a gale. 

With my ''Hya! Heeya! Heeya! Hullah! 
Haul!" 
[O the green that thunders aft along the 
deck!] 
Are you sick o' towns and men ? You 
must sign and sail again. 
For it's "johnny Bowlegs, pack your kit 
and trek!" 

76 



Through the gorge that gives the stars at noon- 
day clear — 
Up the pass that packs the scud beneath our 
wheel — 
Round the bluff that sinks her thousand fathom 
sheer — 
Down the valley with our guttering brakes 
asqueal : 
Where the trestle groans and quivers in the 
snow, 
Where the many-shedded levels loop and 
twine, 
So I lead my reckless children from below 
Till we sing the Song of Roland to the pine. 

With my ** Tinka-tinka'tinka-tinka-tink ! " 
[And the axe has cleared the mountain, 
croup and crest!] 
So we ride the iron stallions down to drink, 
Through the cafions to the waters of the 
West! 

And the tunes that mean so much to you 
alone — 
Common tunes that make you choke and 
blow your nose. 



Vulgar tunes that bring the laugh that brings the 
groan — 
I can rip your very heartstrings out with 
those ; 
With the feasting, and the folly, and the fun — 

And the lying, and the lusting, and the drink, 
And the merry play that drops you, when 
you're done, 
To the thoughts that burn like irons if you 
think. 

With my * ' Plunka - lunka - lunka - lunka- 
lunk ! " 
Here's a trifle on account of pleasure past, 
Ere the wit that made you win gives you 
eyes to see your sin 
And the heavier repentance at the last. 

Let the organ moan her sorrow to the roof — 
I have told the naked stars the grief of man. 

Let the trumpets snare the foeman to the proof — 
I have known Defeat, and mocked it as we ran. 

My bray ye may not alter nor mistake 
When I stand to jeer the fatted Soul of Things, 

But the Song of Lost Endeavour that I make. 

Is it hidden in the twanging of the strings ? 

78 



With my " Ta-ra-rara-rara-ra-ra-rrrp ! " 
[Is it naught to you that hear and pass 
me by ?] 
But the word — the word is mine, when the 
order moves the line 
And the lean, locked ranks go roaring 
down to die. 

The grandam of my grandam was the Lyre — 

\0 the blue below the little fisher-huts!] 
That the Stealer stooping beach ward filled with 
fire, 

Till she bore my iron head and ringing guts^ 
By the wisdom of the centuries I speak — 

To the tune of yestermorn I set the truth — 
\ the joy of life unquestioned — I, the Greek — 

I, the everlasting Wonder Song of Youth ! 

With my " Tinka-tinka-tinka-tinka-tink ! ' * 
[What d'ye lack, my noble masters? 
What d'ye lack ?] 
So I draw the world together link by link: 
Yea, from Delos up to Limerick and 
back I 



79 



**THE LINER SHE'S A LADY." 

The Liner she's a lady, 'an she never looks nor 

'eeds — 
The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, an' 'e gives 'er all 

she needs; 
But. oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the wet 

seas roun', 
They're just the same as you an' me a-plyin' up 

an' down! 

Plyin' up an' down, Jenny, 'angin' round thi 

Yard, 
All the way by Fratton tram down to Ports^ 

mouth ' Ard ; 
Anythin for business, an' we're growin' old—^ 
Plyin' up an' down, Jenny, waitin' in thi 

cold ! 

The Liner she's a lady by the paint upon 'er face, 
An' if she meets an accident they call it sore dis- 
grace : 

So 



The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, and 'e's always 

'andy by, 
But, oh, the little cargo-boats! they've got to load 

or die. 

The Liner she's a lady, and 'er route is cut an* 

dried; 
The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, an' 'e always keeps 

beside; 
But, oh, the little cargo-boats that 'aven't any 

man! 
They've got to do their business first, and make 

the most they can. 

The Liner she's a lady, and if a war should 

come. 
The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, and 'e'd bid 'er stay 

at home; 
But, oh, the little cargo-boats that fill with every 

tide! 
'E'd 'ave to up an' fight for them, for they are 

England's pride. 

The Liner she's a lady, but if she wasn't made, 
Tkere still would be the cargo-boats for 'ome an' 
foreign trade. 



The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, but if we wasn't 

'ere, 
'E wouldn't have to fight at ail for 'ome an' friends 

so dear. 

* Ome an friends so dear, Jenny, 'angin' round 
the Yard, 

All the way by Fratton tram down to Ports- 
mouth ' Ard ; 

Anythin' for business, an' we're growin' old — 

'Ome an' friends so dear, Jenny, waitin in the 
^old ! 



MULHOLLAND'S CONTRACT. 

The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the 

sea, 
An' the pens broke up on the lower deck an' let 

the creatures free — 
An' the lights went out on the lower deck, an' no 

one down but me. 

i had been singin' to them to keep 'em quiet 

there, 
For the lower deck is the dangerousest, requirin* 

constant care, 
An' give to me as the strongest man, though used 

to drink and swear. 

I see my chance was certain of bein' horned or 

trod, 
For the lower deck was packed with steers thicker 

'n peas in a pod, 
An' more pens broke at every roll — so I made a 

Contract with God. 
83 



An' by the terms of the Contract, as I have .cad 

the same, 
If He got me to port alive I would exalt His 

name, 
An' praise His Holy Majesty till further orders 

came. 

He saved me from the cattle an' He saved me from 

the sea. 
For they found me 'tween two drownded ones 

where the roll had landed me — 
An' a four-inch crack on top of my head, as crazy 

as could be. 

But that were done by a stanchion, an' not by a 
bullock at all, 

An' I lay still for seven weeks convalessing of the 
fall, 

An' readin' the shiny Scripture texts in the Sea- 
men's Hospital. 

An' I spoke to God of our Contract, an' He says 

to my prayer: 
" I never puts on My ministers no more than they 

can bear. 
•* So back you go to the cattle-boats an* preach 

My Gospel there. 



"For human life is chancy at any kind of trade, 
'* But most of all, as well you know, when the 

steers are mad-afraid ; 
"So you go back to the cattle-boats an' preach 

'em as I've said. 

''They must quit drinkin' an' swearin', they 

mustn't knife on a blow, 
"They must quit gamblin' their wages, and you 

must preach it so; 
*' For now those boats are more like Hell than 

anything else I know." 

I didn't want to do it, for I knew what I should 

get, 
An' I wanted to preach Religion, handsome an' 

out of the wet, 
But the Word of the Lord were lain on me, an' I 

done what I was set. 

f have been smit an' bruised, as warned would be 
the case, 

An turned my cheek to the smiter exactly as Scrip- 
ture says; 

But following that, I knocked him down an' led 
him up to Grace. 
» 8s 



An' we have preaching on Sundays whenever the 

sea is calm, 
An' I use no knife nor pistol an' I never take no 

harm, 
For the Lord abideth back of me to guide my 

fighting arm. 

An' I sign for four pound ten a month and save the 

money clear, 
An' I am in charge of the lower deck, an' I never 

lose a steer; 
An' I believe in Almighty God an' I preach His 

Gospel here. 

The skippers say I'm crazy, but I can prove 'em 

wrong, 
For 1 am in charge of the lower deck with all that 

doth belong — 
Which they would not give to a lunatic^ and the 

competition so strong! 



9^ 



ANCHOR SONG. 

{From (Many Inventions). 

Heh ! Walk her round. Heave, ah heave her short 
again ! 
Over, snatch her over, there, and hold her on 
the pawl. 
Loose all sail, and brace your yards aback and 
full- 
Ready jib to pay her off and heave short all! 

Well, ah fare you well; we can stay no more 
with you, my love — 
Down, set down your liquor and your girl 
from off your knee; 
For the wind has come to say: 
•' You must take me while you may, 
If you'd go to Mother Carey, 
(Walk her down to Mother Carey!) 
Oh, we're bound to Mother Carey where 
she feeds her chicks at sea ! " 



Heh ! Walk her round. Break, ah break it out o* 
that! 
Break our starboard bower out, apeak, awash, 
and clear. 
Port — port she casts, with the harbour-roil beneath 
her foot, 
And that's the last o' bottom we shall see this 
year! 

Well, ah fare you well, for we've got to take 
her out again — 
Take her out in ballast, riding light and 
cargo-free. 

And it's time to clear and quit 
When the hawser grips the bitt. 
So we'll pay you with the foresheet and a 
promise from the seal 

Heh! Tally on! Aft and walk away witfi her! 

Handsome to the cathead, now; O tally on the 
fall! 
Stop, seize and fish, and easy on the davit-guy. 

Up, well up the fluke of her, and inboard haul! 

Well, ah fare you well, for the Channel wind's 
took hold of us. 



Choking down our voices as we snatch the 
gaskets free. 
And it's blowing up for night, 
And she's dropping Light on Light, 
And she's snorting under bonnets for a 
breath of open sea. 

Wheel, full and by; but she'll smell her road alone 
to-night. 
Sick she is and harbour-sick — O sick to clear the 
land I 
Roll down to Brest with the old Red Ensign 
over us — 
Carry on and thrash her out with all she'll 
stand! 

Well, ah fare you well, and it's Ushant gives 

the door to us, 

Whirling like a windmill on the dirty scud 

to lea : 

Till the last, last flicker goes 

From the tumbling water-rows, 

And we're off to Mother Carey 

(Walk her down to Mother Carey!) 

Oh, we're bound for Mother Carey where 

she feeds her chicks at seal 
89 



THE SEA-WIFE. 

There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate, 

And a wealthy wife is she ; 
She breeds a breed o' rovin' men 

And casts them over sea, 

And some are drowned in deep water, 

And some in sight o' shore. 
And word goes back to the weary wife. 

And ever she sends more. 

For since that wife had gate and gear, 
And hearth and garth and bield, 

She willed her sons to the white harvest, 
And that is a bitter yield. 

She wills her sons to the wet ploughing, 

To ride the horse of tree ; 

And syne her sons come home agaii> 

Far-spent from out the sea. 
90 



the good wife's sons come home again 

With little into their hands, 
But the lore of men that ha' dealt with men 

In the new and naked lands. 

But the faith of men that ha' brothered men 

By more than the easy breath, 
And the eyes o' men that ha' read wi' men 

In the open books of death. 

Rich are they, rich in wonders seen, 

But poor in the goods o' men, 
So what they ha' got by the skin o' their teeth 

They sell for their teeth again. 

For whether they lose to the naked skin, 

Or win to their hearts' desire. 
They tell it all to the weary wife 

That nods beside the fire. 



Her hearth is wide to every wind 
That makes the white ash spin ; 

And tide and tide and 'tween the tide? 
Her sons go out and in ; 

QI 



(Out with great mirth that do desire 

Hazard of trackless ways, 
In with content to wait their watch 

And warm before the blaze) ; 

And some return by failing light, 

And some in waking dream. 
For she hears the heels of the dripping ghosts 

That ride the rough roof-beam. 

Home, they come home from all the ports, 

The living and the dead; 
The good wife's sons come home again 

For her blessing cm their head I 



^ 



HYMN BEFORE ACTION. 

The earth is full of anger, 

The seas are dark with wrath; 
The Nations in their harness 

Go up against our path! 
Ere yet we loose the legions— 

Ere yet we draw the blade, 
Jehovah of the Thunders, 

Lord God of Battles, aid ! 



High lust and froward bearing, 

Proud heart, rebellious brow 

Deaf ear and soul uncaring. 

We seek Thy mercy now: 
The sinner that forswore Thee, 

The fool that passed Thee by. 
Our times are known before Thee 

Lord, grant us strength to die! 
93 



For those who kneel beside us 

At altars not Thine own, 
Who lack the lights that guide us. 

Lord, let their faith atone ; 
If wrong we did to call them. 

By honour bound they came; 
Let not Thy wrath befall them, 

But deal to us the blame. 

From panic, pride, and terror, 

Revenge that knows no rein — 
Light haste and lawless error. 

Protect us yet again. 
Cloak Thou our undeserving, 

Make firm the shuddering breathy 
In silence and unswerving 

To taste thy lesser death! 

Ah, Mary pierced with sorrow, 

Remember, reach and save 
The soul that comes to-morrow 

Before the God that gave! 
Since each was born of woman. 

For each at utter need — 
True comrade and true foeman. 

Madonna, intercede! 

04 



E'en now their vanguard gathers, 

E'en now we face the fray — 
As Thou didst help our fathers, 

Help Thou our host to-day 1 
Fulfilled of signs and wonders, 

In life, in death made clear — 
Jehovah of the Thunders, 

Lord God of Battles, hearl 



9S 



TO THE TRUE ROMANCE. 

(From CMany Inventions.) 

Thy face is far from this our war. 

Our call and counter-cry, 
I shall not find Thee quick and kind.. 

Nor know Thee till I die : 
Enough for me in dreams to see 

And touch Thy garments' hem : 
Thy feet have trod so near to God 

I may notfolloav them. 

Through wantonness if men profess 

They weary of Thy parts, 
E'en let them die at blasphemy 

And perish with their arts; 
But we that love, but we that prove 

Thine excellence august, 
While we adore discover more 

Thee perfect, wise, and just. 

Since spoken word Man's Spirit stirre 

Beyond his belly-need, 
What is is Thine of fair design 

In thought and craft and deed; 



Each stroke aright of toil and fight, 

That was and that shall be, 
And hope too high, wherefore we die. 

Has birth and worth in Thee. 

Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee 

To gild his dross thereby, 
And knowledge sure that he endure 

A child until he die — 
For to make plain that man's disdain 

Is but new Beauty's birth — 
For to possess, in loneliness, 

The joy of all the earth. 

As Thou didst teach all lovers speech, 

And Life all mystery, 
So shalt Thou rule by every school 

Till love and longing diu, 
Who wast or yet the lights were set, 

A whisper in the Void, 
Who shalt be sung through planets young 

When this is clean destroyed. 

Beyond the bounds our staring rounds, 

Across the pressing dark, 

The children wise of outer skies 

Look hitherward and mark 
97 



A light that shifts, a glare that drifts, 

Rekindling thus and thus, 
Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne 

Strange tales to them of us. 

Time hath no tide but must abide 

The servant of Thy will; 
Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme 

The ranging stars stand still — 
Regent of spheres that lock our fears 

Our hopes invisible. 
Oh 'twas certes at Thy decrees 

V/e rashioned Heaven and Hell! 

Pure Wisdom hath no certain path 

That lacks thy morning-eyne, 
And captains bold by Thee controlled 

Most like to Gods design; 
Thou art the Voice to kingly boys 

To lift them through the fight, 
And Comfortress of Unsuccess, 

To give the dead good-night — 

A veil to draw 'twixt God His Law 

And Man's infirmity, 

A shadow kind to dumb and blind 

The shambles where we die; 
98 



A sum to trick th' arithmetic 

Too base of leaguing odds, 
The spur of trust, the curb of lust, 

Thou handmaid of the Gods! 

Oh Charity, all patiently 

Abiding wrack and scaith ! 
Oh Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats 

Yet drops no jot of faith! 
Devil and brute Thou dost transmute 

To higher, lordlier show, 
Who art in sooth that lovely Truth 

The careless angels know! 

Thy face is far from this our war. 

Our call and counter-cry, 
I may not find Thee quick and kind. 

Nor meet Thee till I die. 

Yet may I look with heart unshook 
On blow brought home or missed"^ 

Yet may I hear with equal ear 
The clarions down the list; 

Yet set my lance above mischance 
And ride the barriere — 

Oh, hit or miss, how little 'tis. 

My Lady is not there ! 
99 



THE FLOWERS. 

" To our private taste, there is always something a little ex- 
otic, almost artificial, in songs which, under an English aspect 
and dress, are yet so manifestly the product of other skies. They 
affect us like tianslations ; the very fauna and flora are alien, re- 
mote ; the dog's-tooth violet is but an ill substitute for the rathe 
primrose, nor can we ever believe that the wood-robin sings as 
sweetly in April as the English thrush." — The Athenceum. 

Buy my English posies — 

Kent and Surrey may, 
yiolets of the Under cliff 

Wet with Channel spray ; 
Cowslips from a Devon combe 

Midland fur^e afire — 
Buy my English posies, 

And ril sell your hearts' desire! 

Buy my English posies! — 

You that scorn the may 
Won't you greet a friend from home 

Half the world away ? 

lOO 



Green against the draggled drift, 

Faint and frail and first- 
Buy my Northern blood-root 
And I'll know where you were nursed! 
Robin down the logging-road whistles, ''Come 
to me," 

Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is run- 
ning free; 

All the winds o' Canada call the ploughing- 
rain. 

Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your 
love again ! 



Buy my English posies! — 

Here's to match your need. 
Buy a tuft of royal heath. 

Buy a bunch of weed 
White as sand of Muysenberg 

Spun before the gale — 
Buy my heath and lilies 
And I'll tell you whence you hail! 
Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards 

lie- 
Throned and thorned the aching berg props the 
speckless sky — 
S loi 



Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted 

wain — 
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your 

love again I 

Buy my English posies! — 

You that will not turn, 
Buy my hot-wood clematis. 

Buy a frond o' fern 
Gathered where the Erskine leaps 

Down the road to Lome — 
Buy my Christmas creeper 
And I'll say where you were born! 
West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin— 
They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn — 
Through the great South Otway gums sings the 

great South Main — 
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your 
love again! 

Buy my English posies! — 

Here's your choice unsold! 
Buy a blood-red myrtle-bloom, 

Buy the kowhai's gold 

I02 



Flung for gift on Taupo's faOe 

Sign that spring is come — 
Buy my clinging myrtle 

And I'll give you back your home I 
Broom behind the windy town ; pollen o* the 

pine — 
Bell-bird in the leafy deep where the ratas 

twine — 
Fern above the saddle-bow, flax upon the plain — 
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your 

love again! 

Buy my English posies I 

Ye that have your own 
Buy them for a brother's sake 

Overseas, alone. 
Weed ye trample underfoot 
Floods his heart abrim — 
Bird ye never heeded. 
Oh, she calls his dead to him ! 
Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas. 
Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these I 
Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and 

land — 
Masters of the Seven Seas, oh, bve and under- 
stand! 

103 



THE LAST RHYME OF TRUE THOMAS. 

The King has called for priest and cup, 

The King has taken spur and blade 
To dub True Thomas a belted knight, 

And all for the sake o' the songs he made. 

They have sought him high, they have sought 
him low. 

They have sought him over down and lea; 
They have found him by the milk-white thorn 

That guards the gates o' Faerie. 

' Twas bent beneath and blue above. 
Their eyes were held that they might not see 

The kine that graced between the knowes, 
Oh, they were the Queens o' Faerie ! 

**Now cease your song," the King he said, 

*'0h, cease your song and get you dight 

To vow your vow and watch your arms, 

For I will dub you a belted knight. 

104 



*' For I will give you a horse o* pride, 
Wi' blazon and spur and page and squire; 

Wi' keep and tail and seizin and law, 
And land to hold at your desire." 

True Thomas smiled above his harp, 
And turned his face to the naked sky, 

Where, blown before the wastrel wind. 
The thistle-down she floated by. 

'* I ha* vowed my vow in another place. 

And bitter oath it was on me, 
I ha' watched my arms the lee-long night, 

Where five-score fighting-men would flee. 

''My lance is tipped o' the hammered flame. 
My shield is beat o' the moonlight cold; 

And 1 won my spurs in the Middle World, 
A thousand fathoms beneath the mould. 



"And what should I make wi' a horse o* pride. 

And what should I make wi' a sword so brown, 

But spill the rings o' the Gentle Folk 

And flyte my kin in the Fairy Town ? 

105 



"And what should I make wi' blazon and belt, 
Wi' keep and tail and seizin and fee, 

And what should I do wi' page and squire 
That am a king in my own countrie ? 

*' For 1 send east and I send west, 
And I send far as my will may flee, 

By dawn and dusk and the drinking rain, 
And syne my Sendings return to me. 

" They come wi' news of the groanin' earth. 
They come wi' news o' the roarin' sea, 

Wi' word of Spirit and Ghost and Flesh, 
And man that's mazed among the three," 

The King he bit his nether lip, 
And smote his hand upon his knee: 

" By the faith o' my soul. True Thomas," he said, 
"Ye waste no wit in courtesie! 

** As I desire, unto my pride, 

Can I make Earls by three and three, 

To run before and ride behind 

And serve the sons o' my body.*' 

io6 



** And what care I for your row-foot earls, 

Or all the sons o' your body ? 
Before they win to the Pride o' Name, 

I trow they all ask leave o' me. 

"For I make Honour wi' muckle mouth. 
As I make Shame wi' mincin' feet, 

To sing wi' the priests at the market-cross, 
Or run wi' the dogs in the naked street. 

"And some they give me the good red gold. 
And some they give me the white money. 

And some they give me a clout o' meal, 
For they be people o' low degree. 

" And the song I sing for the counted gold 
The same I sing for the white money, 

But best I sing for the clout o' meal 
That simple people given me." 

The King cast down a silver groat, 

A silver groat o' Scots money, 

*' If I come with a poor man's dole," he said, 

"True Thomas, will ye harp to me?" 

107 



"Whenas I harp to the children small, 
They press me close on either hand : 

And who are you," True Thomas said, 

**That you should ride while they must stand ? 

'* Light down, light down from your horse o' pride, 

I trow ye talk too loud and hie, 
And I will make you a triple word, 

And syne, if ye dare, ye shall 'noble me." 

He has lighted down from his horse o' pride, 

And set his back against the stone. 
"Now guard you well," True Thomas said, 

" Ere I ^^x your heart from your breast-bone I 

True Thomas played upon his harp. 

The fairy harp that couldna' lee, 
And the first least word the proud King heard, 

It harpit the salt tear out o' his ee. 

'* Oh, I see the love that I lost long syne, 

I touch the hope that I may not see. 

And all that I did o' hidden shame, 

Like little snakes they hiss at me. 

io8 



"The sun is lost at noon — at noon! 

The dread o' doom has grippit me. 
True Thomas, hide me under your cloak, 

God wot, I'm little fit to deel " 

* Twas bent beneath and blue above — 
'Twas open field and running flood — 

Where, hot on heath and dyke and wall. 
The high sun warmed the adder's brood. 

'*Lie down, lie down," True Thomas said. 

"The God shall judge when all is done; 
But I will bring you a better word 

And lift the cloud that I laid on." 



True Thomas played upon his harp. 
That birled and brattled to his hand, 

And the next least word True Thomas made, 
It garred the King take horse and brand. 

"Oh, I hear the tread o' the fighting-men, 

I see the sun on splent and spear! 

I mark the arrow outen the fern ! 

That flies so low and sings so clear! 

109 



*' Advance my standards to that war, 
And bid my good knights prick and ride; 

The gled shall watch as fierce a fight 
As e'er was fought on the Border sidel " 

* Twas bent beneath and blue above, 
' Twas nodding grass and naked shy, 

Where ringing up the wastrel wind 
The eyass stooped upon the pye. 

True Thomas sighed above his harp, 
And turned the song on the midmost string' 

And the last least word True Thomas made 
He harpit his dead youth back to the King. 

"Now I am prince, and I do well 

To love my love withouten fear; 
To walk wi' man in fellowship, 

And breathe my horse behind the deer 

" My hounds they bay unto the death. 
The buck has couched beyond the burn. 

My love she waits at her window 
To wash my hands when I return 



"For that I live am I content 

(Oh! I have seen my true love's eyes!) 
To stand wi' Adam in Eden-glade, 

And run in the woods o' Paradise/" 

*Twas nodding grass and naked sky, 
* Twas blue above and bent below, 

Where, checked against the wastrel wind, 
The red deer belled to call the doe. 

True Thomas laid his harp away, 
And louted low at the saddle-side; 

He has taken stirrup and hauden rein, 
And set the King on his horse o' pride^ 

** Sleep ye or wake," True Thomas said, 
" That sit so still, that muse so long; 

Sleep ye or wake ? — till the latter sleep 
I trow ye'll not forget my song. 

" I ha' harpit a shadow out o' the sun 
To stand before your face and cry ; 

I ha' armed the earth beneath your heel, 
And over your head I ha' dusked the sky I 



"I ha' harpit ye up to the Throne o God, 
I ha' harpit your secret soul in three; 

I ha' harpit ye down to the Hinges o' Hell, 
And — ye — would — make — a Knight o' me 



THE STORY OF UNG. 

Once, on a glittering ice-field, ages and ages 

ago, 
Ung, a maker of pictures, fashioned an image of 

snow. 
Fashioned the form of a tribesman — gaily he 

whistled and sung, 
Working the snow with his fingers. Read ye the 

Story of Ung! 



Pleased was his tribe with that image — came in 

their hundreds to scan — 
Handled it, smelt it, and grunted: '* Verily, this is 

a man! 
Thus do we carry our lances — thus is a war-belt 

slung. 
Ay, it is even as we are. Glory and honour to 

Ung!" 

113 



Later he pictured an aurochs — later he pictured ^ 
bear — 

Pictured the sabre-tooth tiger dragging a man to 
his lair — 

Pictured the mountainous mammoth, hairy, ab- 
horrent, alone — 

Out of the love that he bore them, scribing them 
clearly on bone. 

Swift came the tribe to behold them, peering and 
pushing and still — 

Men of the berg-battered beaches, men of the 
boulder-hatched hill, 

Hunters and fishers and trappers — presently whis- 
pering low; 

" Yea, they are like — and it may be . . . .But how 
does the Picture-man know ? 

" Ung — hath he slept with the Aurochs — watched 

where the Mastodon roam ? 
Spoke on the ice with the Bow-head — followed 

the Sabre-tooth home ? 
Nayl These are toys of his fancy! If he have 

cheated us so, 

How is there truth in his image — the man that he 

fashioned of snow ? " 
114 



vVroth was that maker of pictures — hotly he an- 
swered the call: 

*' Hunters and fishers and trappers, children and 
fools are ye all ! 

Look at the beasts when ye hunt them I " Swift 
from the tumult he broke, 

Ran to the cave of his father and told him the 
shame that they spoke. 

And the father of Ung gave answer, that was old 

and wise in the craft, 
Maker of pictures aforetime, he leaned on his lance 

and laughed: 
** If they could see as thou seest they would do 

what thou hast done, 
And each man would make him a picture, and — 

what would become of my son ? 

** There would be no pelts of the reindeer, flung 

down at thy cave for a gift, 
Nor dole of the oily timber that strands with the 

Baltic drift; 
No store of well-drilled needles, nor ouches of 

amber pale; 

No new-cut tongues of the bison, nor meat of the 

stranded whale. 

115 



" Thou hast not toiled at the fishing when the sod- 
den trammels freeze, 

Nor worked the war-boats outward, through the 
rush of the rock-staked seas, 

Yet they bring thee fish and plunder — full meal 
and an easy bed — 

And all for the sake of thy pictures." And Ung 
held down his head. 

" Thou hast not stood to the aurochs when the 

red snow reeks of the fight; 
Men have no time at the houghing to count his 

curls aright: 
And the heart of the hairy mammoth thou sayest 

they do not see, 
Yet they save it whole from the beaches and broil 

the best for thee. 

"And now do they press to thy pictures, with 

open mouth and eye, 
And a little gift in the doorway, and the praise no 

gift can buy : 
But — sure they have doubted thy pictures, and 

that is a grievous stain — 

Son that can see so clearly, return them their gifts 

again." 

ii6 



And Ung looked down at his deerskins— their 

broad shell-tasselled bands— 
And U..g drew downward his mitten and looked 

at his naked hands; 
And he gloved himself and departed, and he heard 

his father, behind: 
"Son that can see so clearly, rejoice that thy tribe 

is blind!" 

Straight on that glittering ice-field, by the caves of 

the lost Dordogne, 
Ung, a maker of pictures, fell to his scribing on 

bone — 

Even to mammoth editions. Gaily he whistled 
and sung, 

Blessing his tribe for their blindness. Heed ye the 
Story of Ung! 



THE THREE-DECKER. 

"The three-volume novel is extinct." 

Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to 

rail. 
It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten 

sail ; 
But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and 

best — 
The only certain packet for the Islands of the 

Blest. 



Fair held our breeze behind us — 'twas warm with 

lovers' prayers: 
We'd stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing 

heirs; 
They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked 

Nurse confessed. 

And they worked the old three-decker to the 

Islands of the Blest. 
iiS 



Carambas and seraphs we waved to every wind, 

We smoked good Corpo Bacco when our sweet- 
hearts proved unkind; 

With maids of matchless beauty and parentage 
unguessed 

We also took our manners to the Islands of the 
Blest. 

We asked no social questions — we pumped no 

hidden shame — 
We never talked obstetrics when the little stranger 

came: 
We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in 

Hell. 
We weren't exactly Yussufs, but — Zuleika didn't 

tell! 



No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we 

neared, 
The villain got his flogging at the gangway, and 

we cheered. 
'Twas fiddles in the foc'sle — 'twas garlands on the 

mast, 

For every one got married, and I went ashore at 

last. 

119 



I left 'em all in couples akissing on the decks. 

I left the lovers loving and the parents signing 
checks. 

In endless English comfort by county-folk ca- 
ressed, 

I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the 
Blest! 

That route is barred to steamers : you'll never lift 

again 
Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps 

of Spain. 
They're just beyond the skyline, howe'er so far you 

cruise 
In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of 

bucking screws. ^ 

Swing round your aching search-light — 'twill show 
no haven's peace I 

Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray- 
bearded seas! 

Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep's 
unrest — 

But you aren't a knot the nearer to the islands 
of the Blest. 

ISO 



And when you're threshing, crippled, with broken 

bridge and rail. 
On a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head 

to gale, 
Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to \aff- 

rail dressed, 
You'll see the old three-decker for the islands of 

the Blest. 

You'll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver 

spread ; 
You'll hear the long-drawn thunder 'neath her 

leaping figure-head; 
While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterrw 

shine 
Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles 

round a shrine. 

Hull down — hull down and under — she dwindles 

to a speck, 
With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her 

deck. 
All's well— all's well aboard her — she's dropped 

you far behind, 
With a scent of old-worid roses through the fog 

that ties you blind. 

131 



Her crew are babes or madmen ? Her port is all 

to make ? 
You're manned by Truth and Science, and you 

steam for steaming's sake ? 
Well, tinker up your engines — you know your 

business best — 
She's taking tired people to the Islands of the 

Blest I 



122 



AN AMERICAN. 

The American Spirit speaks: 

If the Led Striker call it a strike, 

Or the papers call it a war, 
They know not much what I am like, 

Nor what he is, my Avatar. 

Through many roads, by me possessed. 
He shambles forth in cosmic guise; 

He is the Jester and the Jest, 
And he the Text himself applies. 

The Celt is in his heart and hand. 
The Gaul is in his brain and nerve; 

Where, cosmopolitanly planned, 
He guards the Redskin's dry reserve. 

His easy unswept hearth he lends 

From Labrador to Guadeloupe; 

Till, elbowed out by sloven friends, 

He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop. 
123 



Calm-eyed he scoffs at sword and crown. 
Or panic-blinded stabs and slays: 

Blatant he bids the world bow down. 
Or cringing begs a crumb of praise; 

Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart, 
He dubs his dreary brethren Kings. 

His hands are black with blood : his heart 
Leaps, as a babe's, at little things. 

But, through the shift of mood and mood, 
Mine ancient humour saves him whol 

The cynic devil in his blood 
That bids him mock his hurrying soul; 

That bids hijii flout the Law be makes, 
That bids hiin make the Law he flouts, 

Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes 
The drumming guns that— have no doubts; 

That checks him foolish hot and fond, 

That chuckles through his deepest ire, 

That gilds the slough of his despond 

But dims the goal of his desire; 
124 



Inopportune, shrill-accented, 

The acrid Asiatic mirth 
That leaves him careless 'mid his dead, 

The scandal of the elder earth. 

How shall he clear himself, how reach 
Our bar or weighed defence prefer — 

A brother hedged with alien speech 
And lacking all interpreter? 

Which knowledge vexes him a space; 

But while reproof around him rings, 
He turns a keen untroubled face 

Home, to the instant need of things. 

Enslaved, illogical, elate. 

He greets th' embarrassed Gods, nor fears 
To shake the iron hand of Fate 

Or match with Destiny for beers. 

Lo! imperturbable he rules, 

Unkempt, disreputable, vast — 
And, in the teeth of all the schools 

I — I shall save him at the last! 
125 



THE MARY GLOSTER. 

TvE paid for your sickest fancies; I've humoured 

your crackedest whim — 
Dick, it's your daddy — dying: you've got to listen 

to him! 
Good for a fortnight, am I ? The doctor told you ? 

He lied. 
I shall go under by morning, and Put that 

nurse outside. 
'Never seen death yet, Dickie ? Well, now is 

your time to learn, 
And you'll wish you held my record before it 

comes to your turn. 
Not counting the Line and the Foundry, the yards 

and the village, too, 
I've made myself and a million; but I'm damned 

if I made you. 

Master at two-and-twenty, and married at twenty 

three — 

126 



Ten thousand men on the pay-roll, and forty 

freighters at sea ! 
Fifty years between 'em, and every year of it 

fight, 
And now I'm Sir Anthony Gloster, dying, j[ 

baronite : 
For I lunched with His Royal 'Ighness — what was 

it the papers a-had ? 
**Not least of our merchant-princes." Dickie, 

that's me, your dad ! 
/ didn't begin with askings. / took my job and 

I stuck; 
And I took the chances they wouldn't, an' now 

they're calling it luck. 
Lord, what boats I've handled — rotten and leaky 

and old! 
Ran 'em, or — opened the bilge-cock, precisely as I 

was told. 
Grub that 'ud bind you crazy, and crews that 'ud 

turn you gray, 
And a big fat lump of insurance to cover the risk 

on the way. 
The others they duresn't do it; they said they 

valued their life 

(They've served me since as skippers). / went 

and I took my wife. 
127 



Over the world I drove *em, married at twenty- 
three, 
And your mother saving the money and making a 

man of me. 
I was content to be master, but she said there was 

better behind ; 
She took the chances I wouldn't, and I followed 

your mother blind. 
She egged me to borrow the money, an* she 

helped me clear the loan, 
When we bought half shares in a cheap 'un and 

hoisted a flag of our own. 
Patching and coaling on credit, and living the Lord 

knew how. 
We started the Red Ox freighters — we've eight- 

and-thirty now. 
And those were the days of clippers, and the 

freights were clipper-freights, 
And we knew we were making our fortune, but 

she died in Macassar Straits — 
By the Little Paternosters, as you come to the 

Union Bank — 
And we dropped her in fourteen fathom ; I pricked 

it off where she sank. 

Owners we were, full owners, and the boat was 

christened for her, 
128 



And she died out there in childbed. My heart, 

how young we were! 
So I went on a spree round Java and well-nigh ran 

her ashore, 
But your mother came and warned me and 1 

wouldn't liquor no more. 
Strict I stuck to my business, afraid to stop or I'd 

think, 
Saving the money (she warned me), and letting 

the other men drink. 
And I met McCullough in London (I'd saved five 

'undred then), 
And 'tween us we started the Foundry — three 

forges and twenty men : 
Cheap repairs for the cheap 'uns. It paid, and the 

business grew, 
For I bought me a steam-lathe patent, and that 

was a gold mine too. 
''Cheaper to build 'em than buy 'em," /said, but 

McCullough he shied, 
And we wasted a year in talking before we moved 

to the Clyde. 
And the Lines were all beginning, and we all of 

us started fair, 
Building our engines like houses and staying the 

boilers square. 



But McCullough 'e wanted cabins with 

marble and maple and all, 
And Brussels and Utrecht velvet, and baths and a 

Social Hall, 
And pipes for closets all over, and cutting the 

frames too light. 
But McCullough he died in the Sixties, and 

Well, Tm dying to-night. ... 
I knew — / knew what was coming, when we bid 

on the Byfleefs keel. 
They piddled and piffled with iron: I'd given my 

orders for steel. 
Steel and the first expansions. It paid, I tell you, 

it paid, 
When we came with our nine-knot freighters and 

collared the long-run trade. 
And they asked me how I did it, and I gave 'em 

the Scripture text, 
** You keep your light so shining a little in front o' 

the next!" 
They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't 

copy my mind. 
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a 

half behind. 

Then came the armour-contracts, but that was 

McCuIlough's side; 
13© 



He was always best in the Foundry, but better, 

perhaps, he died. 
I went through his private papers; the notes was 

plainer than print; 
And I'm no fool to finish if a man'll give me a 

hint. 
(I remember his widow was angry.) So I saw 

what the drawings meant. 
And I started the six-inch rollers, and it paid me 

sixty per cent. 
Sixty per cent with failures, and more than twice 

we could do. 
And a quarter-million to credit, and I saved it all 

for you. 
I thought — it doesn't matter — you seemed to fa- 
vour your ma, 
But you're nearer forty than thirty, and I know the 

kind you are. 
Harrer an' Trinity College! I ought to ha' sent 

you to sea — 
But I stood you an education, an' what have you 

done for me ? 
The things I knew was proper you wouldn't thank 

me to give. 
And the things I knew was rotten you said was 

the way to live ; 



For you muddled with books and pictures, arf 

china an' etchin's an' fans, 
And your rooms at college was beastly — more like 

a whore's than a man's — 
Till you married that thin-flanked woman, as 

white and as stale as a bone, 
And she gave you your social nonsense; but 

Where's that kid o' your own ? 
I've seen your carriages blocking the half of the 

Cromwell Road, 
But never the doctor's brougham to help the 

missus unload. 
(So there isn't even a grandchild, an' the Gloster 

family's done.) 
Not like your mother, she isn't. She carried her 

freight each run. 
But they died, the pore little beggars ! At sea she 

had 'em — they died. 
Only you, an' you stood it; you haven't stood 

much beside — 
Weak, a liar, and idle, and mean as a collier'. 

whelp 
Nosing for scraps in the galley. No help — my son 

was no help! 
So he gets three 'undred thousand, in trust and 

the interest paid. 

152 



( wouldn't give it you, Dickie— you see, I made it 

in trade. 
You're saved from soiling your fingers, and if you 

have no child, 
It all comes back to the business. Gad, won't 

your wife be wild I 
Calls and calls in her carriage, her 'andkerchief up 

to 'er eye: 
"Daddy! dear daddy's dyin'l" and doing her 

best to cry. 
Grateful ? Oh, yes, I'm grateful, but keep 'er away 

from here. 
Your mother 'ud never ha' stood 'er, and, anyhow, 

women are queer. . . . 
There's women will say I've married a second time. 

Not quite! 
But give pore Aggie a hundred, and tell her your 

lawyers'Il fight. 
She was the best o' the boiling — you'll meet her 

before it ends; 
I'm in for a row with the mother — I'll leave you 

settle my friends : 
For a man he must go with a woman, which 

women don't understand — 

Or the sort that say they can see it they aren't the 

marrying brand. 
lo 133 



But I wanted to speak o' your mother that's Lady 

Gloster still. 
I'm going to up and see her, without it's hurt- 
ing the will. 
Here! Take your hand off the bell-pull. Five 

thousand's waiting for you, 
If you'll only listen a minute, and do as I bid 

you do. 
They'll try to prove me a loony, and, if you 

bungle, they can; 
And I've only you to trust to! (O God, why 

ain't he a man ?) 
There's some waste money on marbles, the same 

as McCullough tried — 
Marbles and mausoleums — but I call that sinful 

pride. 
There's some ship bodies for burial — we've carried 

'em, soldered and packed; 
Down in their wills they wrote it, and nobody 

called them cracked. 
But me — I've too much money, and people might 

... All my fault: 
It come o' hoping for grandsons and buying that 

Wokin' vault. 
I'm sick o' the 'ole dam' business; I'm going back 

where I came. 134 



Dick, you're the son o' my body, and you'll take 

charge o' the samel 
I'm going to lie by your mother, ten thousand mile 

away, 
And they'll want to send me to Woking; and that's 

where you'll earn your pay. 
Tve thought it out on the quiet, the same as it 

ought to be done — 
Qyiet, and decent, and proper — an' here's your 

orders, my son. 
You know the Line ? You don't, though. You 

write to the Board, and tell 
Your father's death has upset you an' you're goin' 

to cruise for a spell. 
An' you'd like the Mary Gloster — I've held her 

ready for this — 
They'll put her in working order an' you'll take 

her out as she is. 
Yes, it was money idle when I patched her and put 

her aside 
(Thank God, I can pay for my fancies !) — the boat 

where your mother died, 
By the Little Paternosters, as you come to the 

Union Bank, 
We dropped her — I think I told you — and I pricked 

it off where she sank. 



[Tiny she looked on the grating — that oily, treacly 

sea — ] 
Hundred and eighteen East, remember, and South 

just three. 
Easy bearings to carry — three South — three to the 

dot; 
But I gave McAndrews a copy in case of dying — of 

not. 
And so you'll write to McAndrews, he's Chief of 

the Maori Line; 
They'll give him leave, if you ask 'em and say it's 

business o' mine. 
I built three boats for the Maoris, an' very well 

pleased they were, 
An' I've known Mac since the Fifties, and Mac knew 

me — and her. 
After the first stroke warned me I sent him the 

money to keep 
Against the time you'd claim it, committin' your 

dad to the deep ; 
For you are the son o' my body, and Mac was my 

oldest friend, 
I've never asked 'im to dinner, but he'll see it out 

to the end- 

Stiff-necked Glasgow beggar, I've heard he's 

prayed for my soul, 
13^ 



But he couldn't lie if you paid him, and he'd starve 
before he stole. 

He'll take the Mary in ballast— you'll find her a 
lively ship; 

And you'll take Sir Anthony Gloster, that goes on 
his wedding-trip, 

Lashed in our old deck-cabin with all three port- 
holes wide, 

The kick o' the screw beneath him and the round 
blue seas outside! 

Sir Anthony Gloster's carriage — our 'ouse-flag fly- 
in' free — 

Ten thousand men on the pay-roll and forty 
freighters at sea ! 

He made himself and a million, but this world is 
a fleetin' show, 

And he'll go to the wife of 'is bosom the same as 
he ought to go. 

By the heel of the Paternosters— there isn't a chance 
to mistake — 

And Mac'll pay you the money as soon as the bub- 
bles break I 

Five thousand for six weeks' cruising, the stanch- 
est freighter afloat. 

And Mac he'll give you your bonus the minute I'm 
out o' the boat! 



He'll take you round to Macassar, and you'll come 

back alone; 
He knows what I want o' the Mary. . . . I'll do 

what I please with my own. 
Your mother 'ud call it wasteful, but I've seven- 

and-thirty more ; 
I'll come in my private carriage and bid it wait at 

the door. . . . 
For my son 'e was never a credit: 'e muddled 

with books and art. 
And 'e lived on Sir Anthony's money and 'e broke 

Sir Anthony's heart. 
There isn't even a grandchild, and the Gloster 

family's done — 
The only one you left me, O mother, the only 

one! 
Harrer an' Trinity College! Me slavin' early an' 

late, 
An' he thinks I'm dyin' crazy, and you're in Ma- 
cassar Strait ! 
Flesh o' my flesh, my dearie, for ever an' ever 

amen, 
That first stroke come for a warning; I ought to 

ha' gone to you then, 
But — cheap repairs for a cheap 'un — the doctors 

said I'd do: i^8 



Mary, why didn'tyou warn me ? I've alius heeded 

to you, 
Excep' — I know — about women; but you are a 

spirit now; 
An', wife, they was only w^omen, and I was a man. 

That's how. 
An' a man 'e must go with a woman, as you could 

not understand ; 
But I never talked 'em secrets. I paid 'em out o' 

hand. 
Thank Gawd, I can pay for my fancies! Now 

what's five thousand to me. 
For a berth off the Paternosters in the haven where 

I would be ? 
I believe in the Resurrection, if I read my Bible 

plain, 
tJut I wouldn't trust 'em at Wokin'; we're safer at 

sea again. 
For the heart it shall go with the treasure — go 

down to the sea in ships. 
I'm sick of the hired women — I'll kiss my girl on 

her lips! 
I'll be content with my fountain, I'll drink from my 

own well, 
And the wife of my youth shall charm me — an' the 

rest can go to Hell ! 
159 



(Diclde, he will, that's certain.) I'll lie in oui 

standin'-bed, 
An' Mac'U take her in ballast — and she trims best 

by the head. . . . 
Down by the head an' sinkin'. Her fires are drawn 

and cold, 
And the water's splashin' hollow on the skin of 

the empty hold — 
Churning an' choking and chuckling, quiet and 

scummy and dark — 
Full to her lower hatches and risin' steady. 

Hark! 
That was the after-bulkhead. . . . she's flooded 

from stem to stern. . . . 
Never seen death yet, Dickie ? . . . Well, now is 

your time to learn ! 



140 



SESTINA OF THE TRAMP-ROYAL. 

Speakin' in general, I 'ave tried 'em all, 
The *appy roads that take you o'er the world. 
Speakin' in general, I 'ave found them good 
For such as cannot use one bed too long, 
But must get 'ence, the same as I 'ave done. 
An' go observin' matters till they die. 

What do it matter where or 'ow we die, 

So long as we've our 'ealth to watch it all — 

The different ways that different things are done, 

An' men an' women lovin' in this world — 

Takin' our chances as they come along, 

An' when they ain't pretendin' they are good ? 

In cash or credit — no, it ain't no good ; 

You 'ave to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die. 

Unless you lived your life but one day long. 

Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all, 

But drew your tucker some'ow from the world, 

An' never bothered what y/ou might ha' done. 

141 



But, Gawd, what things are they I 'aven't done ? 
I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good, 
In various situations round the world — 
For 'im that doth not work must surely diej 
But that's no reason man should labour all 
'Is life Of! one same shift; life's none so long. 

Therfore, from job to job I've moved along. 

Pay couldn't 'old me when my time was done, 

For something in my 'ead upset me all, 

Till I 'ad dropped whatever 'twas for good. 

An', out at sea, be'eld the dock-lights die. 

An' met my mate — the wind that tramps the world. 

It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world, 
Which you can read and care for just so long. 
But presently you feel that you will die 
Unless you get the page you're readin' done, 
An' turn another — likely not so good; 
But what you're after is to turn 'em all. 

Gawd bless this world ! Whatever she 'ath done — 
Excep' when awful long — I've found it good. 
So write, before I die, " 'E liked it all! " 

142 



BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS, 



When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre, 
He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea; 

An' what he thought 'e might require, 
'E went an' took — the same as me ! 

The market-girls an' fishermen, 
The shepherds an' the sailors, to(x 

They 'eard old songs turn up again^ 
But kep' it quiet — same as you I 

They knew 'e stole; V knew they know&S, 
They didnt tell, nor make a fuss. 

But winked at 'Omer down the road. 
An' 'e winked back-^the same as us! 



144 



'*BACK TO THE ARMY AGAIN." 

I'm 'ere in a ticky ulster an' a broken billycock 'at, 
A-layin' on to the sergeant I don't know a gun 

from a bat; 
My shirt's doin' duty for jacket, my sock's stickin' 

out o' my boots. 
An' I'm learnin' the damned old goose-step along 

o' the new recruits! 

Back to the Army again, sergeant. 

Back to the Army again. 
Don't look so 'ard, for I 'aven't no card, 

I'm back to the Army again ! 

I done my six years' service. 'Er Majesty sez: 

**Good day — 
You'll please to come when you're rung for, an' 

'ere's your 'ole back pay; 
An' four-pence a day for baccy — an' bloomin' gen- 

'rous, too; 
An' now you can make your fortune — the same as 

your orfcers do." 
I4S 



Back to the Army again, sergeant, 

Back to the Army again ; 
'Ow did I learn to do right-about turn ? 

I'm back to the army again ! 

A man o' four-an'-twenty that 'asn't learned of a 

trade— 
Beside "Reserve" agin' him — *e'd better be never 

made. 
I tried my luck for a quarter, an' that was enough 

for me, 
An' I thought of 'Er Majesty's barricks, an' I 

thought I'd go an' see. 

Back to the Army again, sergeant, 

Back to the Army again ; 
*Tisn't my fault if I dress when I 'alt — 

I'm back to the Army again ! 

The sergeant arst no questions, but 'e winked the 

other eye, 
E' sez to me, '"Shun!" an' I shunted, the same 

as in days gone by ; 
For 'e saw the set o' my shoulders, an' I couldn't 

'elp 'oldin' straight 
When me an' the other rookies come under the 

barrick gate. j^ 



Back to the Army again, sergeant, 

Back to the Army again ; 
'Oo would ha' thought I could carry an' port ? 

I'm back to the Army again! 

I took my bath, an' I wallered — for. Gawd, I 

needed it so! 
I smelt the smell o' the barricks, I 'eard the bugles 

go- 
I 'eard the feet on the gravel — the feet o' the men 

what drill — 

An' I sez to my flutterin' 'eart-strings, I sez to 'em, 

"Peace, be still!" 

Back to the Army again, sergeant, 

Back to the Army again ; 
'Oo said I knew when the Jumner was due ? 

I'm back to the Army again! 

I carried my slops to the tailor; I sez to 'im, 

"None o' your lip! 
You tight 'em over the shoulders, an' loose 'em 

over the 'ip. 
For the set o' the tunic's 'orrid." An' 'e sez to me. 

"Strike me dead. 

But I thought you was used to the business ! " an' 

so 'e done what I said. 
147 



Back to the Army again, sergeant, 

Back to the Army again. 
Rather too free with my fancies ? Wot — me ? 

I'm back to the Army again! 

Next week I'll 'ave 'em fitted; I'll buy me a walk- 
in' cane; 

They'll let me free o' the barricks to walk on the 
Hoe again 

In the name o' William Parsons, that used to be 
Edward Clay, 

An' — any pore beggar that wants it can draw my 
fourpence a day ! 

Back to the Army again, sergeant. 

Back to the Army again : 
Out o' the cold an' the rain, sergeant, 

Out o' the cold an' the rain. 

'Oo's there ? 
A man that's too good to be lost you, 

A man that is 'andled an' made — 
A man that will pay what 'e cost you 

In learnin' the others their trade — parade ! 
You're droppin' the pick o' the Army 

Because you don't 'elp 'em remain, 
But drives 'em to cheat to get out o* the street 

An' back to the Army again ! 



"BIRDS OF PREY" MARCH. 

March! The mud is cakin' good about our 
trousies. 
Front! — eyes front, an' watch the Colour-casin's 
drip. 
Front! The faces of the women in the 'ouses 
Ain't the kind o' things to take aboard the ship. 

Cheer ! An* we'll never march to victory. 
Cheer! An' we'll never live to 'ea^ the cannon 
roar ! 

The Large Birds & Prey 
They will carry us away, 
An' you'll never see your soldiers any more ! 

Wheel! Oh, keep your touch; we're goin* round 

a corner. 

Time! — mark time, an' let the men be'ind us 

close. 

u 149 



Lord! the transport's full, an' 'alf our lot not on 
'er — 
Cheer, O cheer! We're going off where no 
one knows. 

March! The Devil's none so black as 'e is 
painted! 
Cheer! We'll 'ave some fun before we're put 
away. 
'Alt, an' 'and 'er out — a woman's gone and 
fainted ! 
Cheer! Get on — Gawd 'elp the married men 
to-day ! 

Hoi! Come up, you 'ungry beggars, to yer sor- 
row. 
('Ear them say they want their tea, an' want it 

quick !) 
You won't have no mind for slingers, not to-mor- 
row — 
No; you'll put the 'tween-decks stove out, bein* 
sick! 

'Alt! The married kit 'as all to go before us! 
'Course it's blocked the bloomin' gangway up 



again ! 



150 



Cheer, O cheer the 'Orse Guards watchin' tender 
o'er us, 
Keepin' us since eight this mornin' in the rain! 



Stuck in 'eavy marchin'-order, sopped and wring- 
in'— 
Sick, before our time to watch *er 'eave an' fall, 
'Ere's your 'appy 'ome at last, an' stop your sing- 
in'. 
'Alt ! Fall in along the troop-deck ! Silence all ! 

Cheer! For we'll never live to see no bloom- 
in' victory! 
Cheer ! An' we'll never live to' ear the cannon 
roar! (One cheer more!) 
The jackal an' the kite 
'Ave an 'ealthy appetite, 
An' you'll never see your soldiers any more ! 
i^Ip ! Urroar !) 

The eagle an' the crow 
They are waitin' ever so, 
An' you'll never see your soldiers any more I 
i^Ip! Urroar!) 

Yes, the Large Birds o' Prey 
They will carry us away, 
An' you'll nerom- see your soldiers any more / 



•'SOLDIER AN' SAILOR TOO." 

As I was spittin* into the Ditch aboard o' the Croc- 
odile, 
I seed a man on a man-o'-war got up in the 

Reg'Iars' style. 
'E was scrapin' the paint from off of 'er plates, an' 

I sez to 'im, " 'Oo are you ?" 
Sez 'e, "I'm a Jolly — 'Er Majesty's Jolly — soldier 

an' sailor too! " 
Now 'is work begins at Gawd knows when, and 

'is work is never through ; 
'E isn't one o' the reg'lar Line, nor 'e isn't one of 

the crew. 
'E's a kind of a giddy harumfrodite — soldier an* 

sailor too ! 



An' after I met 'im all over the world, a-doin' all 

kinds of things. 

Like landin' 'isself with a Gatlin' gun to talk to 

them 'eathen kings; 
152 



*£ sleeps in an 'ammick instead of a cot, an* 'e 
drills with the deck on a slew, 

An' 'e sweats like a Jolly — 'Er Majesty's Jolly — -sol- 
dier an' sailor too! 

For there isn't a job on the top o' the earth the 
beggar don't know, nor do. 

You can leave 'im at night on a bald man's 'ead, 
to paddle 'is own canoe ; 

'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse — soldier an' 
sailor too. 



We've fought 'em on trooper, we've fought 'em 
in dock, an' drunk with 'em in betweens. 

When they called us the seasick scull'ry maids, 
an' we called 'em the Ass Marines; 

But, when we was down for a double fatigue, from 
Woolwich to Bernardmyo, 

We sent for the Jollies — 'Er Majesty's Jollies — sol- 
dier an' sailor too! 

They think for 'emselves, an' they steal for 'em- 
selves, and they never ask what's to do. 

But they're camped an' fed an' they're up an' fed 
before our bugle's blew. 

Hoi they ain't no limpin' procrastitutes — soldier 

an' sailor too. 

153 



You may say we are fond of an 'arness-cut, or 

'ootin' in barrick-yards, 
Or slartin' a Board School mutiny along o' the 

Onion Guards; 
But once in a while we can finish in style for the 

ends of the earth to view, 
The same as the Jollies — 'er Majesty's Jollies — sol- 
dier an* sailor too ! 
They come of our lot, they was brothers to us; 

they was beggars we'd met an' knew; 
Yes, barrin' an inch in the chest an' the arms, they 

was doubles o' me an' you; 
For they weren't no special chrysanthemums-— 

soldier an' sailor too! 

To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with 

firing all about, 
Is nothing so bad when you've cover to 'and, an' 

leave an' likin' to shout; 
But to stand an' be still to the Birken'ead drill is a 

damn tough bullet to chew. 
An' they done it, the Jollies — 'Er Majesty's Jollies 

— soldier an' sailor too! 
Their work was done when it 'ada't begun ; the]* 

was younger nor me an' you; 

154 



Their choice it was plain between drownin' in 
'eaps an' bein' mashed by the screw, 

So they stood an' was still to the Birhen'ead drill 
soldier an' sailor too ! 



We're most of us liars we're 'arf of us thieves, an' 

the rest are as rank as can be, 
But once in a while we can finish in style (which 

I 'ope it won't 'appen to me). 
But it makes you think better o' you an' your 

friends, an' the work you may 'ave to do, 
When you think o' the sinkin' J/ictorier s ]o\\\ts — 

soldier an' sailor too! 
Now there isn't no room for to say ye don't 

know — they 'ave proved it plain and true — 
That whether it's Widow, or whether it's ship, 

Victorier's work is to do. 
An' they done it, the Jollies — 'Er Majesty's Jollies — 

soldier an' sailor too ! 



155 



SAPPERS. 

When the Waters were dried an' the Earth did ap- 
pear 
("It's all one," says the Sapper), 

The Lord He created the Engineer, 
Her Majesty's Royal Engineer, 
With the rank and pay of a Sapper! 

When the Flood come along for an extra mon- 
soon, 
Twas Noah constructed the first pontoon 
To the plans of Her Majesty's, etc. 

But after "fatigue" in the wet an' the sun, 
Old Noah got drunk, which he wouldn't ha' done 
If he'd trained with, etc. 

When the Tower o' Babel had mixed up men's 

bat, 

Some clever civilian was managing that, 

An' none of, etc. 

156 



When the Jews had a fight at the foot of an 'ill, 
Young Joshua ordered the sun to stand still, 
For he was a Captain of Engineers, etc. 

When the Children of Israel made bricks without 

straw, 
They were learnin' the regular work of our Corps, 
The work of, etc. 

For ever since then, if a war they would wage. 
Behold us a-shinin' on history's page- 
First page for, etc. 

We lay down their sidings an' help 'em entrain, 
An' we sweep up their mess through the bloomin' 
campaign, 
In the style of, etc. 

They send us in front with a fuse an' a mine 
To blow up the gates that are rushed by the 
Line, 
But bent by, etc. 

They send us behind with a pick an' a spade, 
To dig for the guns of a bullock-brigade 
Which has asked for, etc. 
157 



We work under escort in trousies an' shirt, 
An' the heathen they plug us tail-up in the dirt, 
Annoying, etc. 

We blast out the rock an' we shovel the mud, 
We make 'em good roads an' — they roll down the 
khud, 
Reporting, etc. 

We make 'em their bridges, their wells, an' their 

huts. 
An' the telegraph-wire the enemy cuts, 
An' it's blamed on, etc. 

An' when we return an' from war we would 

cease, 
They grudge us adornin' the billets of peace, 
Which are kept for, etc. 

We build 'em nice barricks — they swear they 

are bad, 
That our Colonels are Methodist, married of 

mad, 
Insultin', etc g 



They haven't no manners nor gratitude too, 
For the more that we help 'em the less will they 
do, 
But mock at, etc. 

Now the Line's but a man with a gun in his 

hand, 
An' Cavalry's only what horses can stand, 
When helped by, etc. 

Artillery moves by the leave o' the ground, 
But we are the men that do something all round, 
For we are, etc. 

I have stated it plain, an' my argument's thus, 

(*' It's all one," says the Sapper), 
7'iere's only one Corps which is perfect — that's 
us; 

An' they call us Her Majesty's Engineers, 

Her Majesty's Royal Engineers, 

With the rank and pay of a Sapper I 



159 



THAT DAY. 

It got beyond all orders an' it got beyond 
all 'ope; 
It got to shammin' wounded an' retirin' from 
the 'alt 
'Ole companies was lookin' for the nearest road to 
slope; 
It were just a bloomin' knock-out — an' our 
fault! 



Now there ain't no chorus 'ere to give, 

Nor there ain't no band to play ; 
An' I wish I was dead 'fore I done what I did 

Or seen what I seed that day ! 

We was sick o* bein' punished, an' we let 'em 

know it, too; 

An' a company-commander up an' 'it us with a 

sword, 

i6o 



An' some one shouted " 'Ook it! " an' It come to 
sove-kt-poo, 
An' we chucked our rifles from us — oh, my 
Gawd! 

There was thirty dead an' wounded on the ground 
we wouldn't keep — 
No, there wasn't more than twenty when the 
front begun to go ; 
But, Christ! along the line o' flight they cut us up 
like sheep. 
An' that was all we gained by doin' so. 

I 'card the knives be'ind me, but I dursn't face my 
man, 
An' 1 don't know where I went to, 'cause I 
didn't 'alt to see. 
Till I 'eard a beggar squealin' out for quarter as 'e 
ran. 
An' I thought I knew the voice an'— it was me ! 

We was 'idin' under bedsteads more than 'arf a 
march away ; 
We was lyin' up like rabbits all about the coun- 
try side; 

i6i 



An' the major cursed 'is Maker 'cause 'e lived to 
see that day, 
An' the colonel broke 'is sword acrost, an' 
cried. 

We was rotten 'fore we started — we was never 
disciplined'^ 
We made it out a favour if an order was 
obeyed ; 
Yes, every little drummer 'ad 'is rights an' wrongs 
to mind, 
So we had to pay for teachin' — an' we paid ! 

The papers 'id it 'andsome, but you know the 
Army knows; 
We was put to groomin' camels till the regi- 
ments withdrew, 
An' they give us each a medal for subduin' Eng- 
land's foes, 
An' I 'ope you like my song — because it's true! 

An' there ain't no chorus 'ere to give, 

Nor there ain't no band to play ; 
But I wish I was dead 'fore I done what I did 

Or seen what I seed that day I 



"THE MEN THAT FOUGHT AT MINDEN." 

A SONG OF INSTRUCTION. 

The men that fought at Minden, they was rookies 
in their time — 
So was them that fought at Waterloo ! 
All the 'ole command, yuss, from Minden to Mai- 
wand, 
They was once dam' sweeps like you! 

Then do not be discouraged, *Eaven is your 
'elper, 
We'll learn you not to forget ; 
An' you mustn't swear an' curse, or you'll only 
catch it worse, 
For we'll make you soldiers yet. 

The men that fought at Minden, they 'ad stocks 

beneath their chins. 

Six inch 'igh an' more; 
163 



But fatigue it was their pride, and they would not 
be denied 
To clean the cook-'ouse floor. 



The men that fought at Minden, they 'ad anarch- 
istic bombs 
Served to 'em by name of 'and-grenades; 
But they got it in the eye (same as you will by 
an' by) 
When they clubbed their field-parades. 

The men that fought at Minden, they 'ad buttons 
up an' down, 
Two-an'-twenty dozen of 'em told ; 
But they didn't grouse an' shirk at an hour's extry 
work, 
They kept 'em bright as gold. 

The men that fought at Minden, they was armed 

with musketoons, 
Also, they was drilled by 'alberdiers; 
I don't know what they were, but the sergeants 

took good care 

They washed be'ind their ears. 
164 



The men that fought at Minden, they 'ad ever cash 
in 'and 
Which they did not bank nor save, " 

But spent it gay an' free on their betters — such as 
me — 
For the good advice I gave. 

The men that fought at Minden, they was civil 
— yuss, they was — 
Never didn't talk o' rights an' wrongs, 
But they got it with the toe (same as you will get 
it— so!)— 
For interrupting songs. 

The men that fought at Minden, they was several 
other things 
Which I don't remember clear; 
But that's the reason why, now the six-year men 
are dry, 
The rooks will stand the beer! 

Then do not be discouraged, 'Eaven is your 
*elper, 
We'll learn you not to forget ; 
An' you mustn't swear an' curse, or you'll only 
catch it worse, 
And we'll make you soldiers yet 

12 i6§ 



Soldiers yet, if you've got it in you — 

All for the sake o' the Core ; 
Soldiers yet, if we 'ave to shin you — 

Run an' get the beer, Johnny Raw— Johnny 
Raw I 

Ho ! run an' get the beer, Johnny Raw I 



100 



CHOLERA CAMP. 

We've got the cholerer in camp — it's worse than 

forty fights ; 
We're dyin' in the wilderness the same as Isru- 

lites ! 
It's before us, an' be'ind us, an' we cannot get 

away. 
An' the doctor's just reported we've ten more 

to-day ! 

Oh, strike your camp an* go, the bugle's callin\ 

The Rains are fallin* — 
The dead are hushed an' stoned to keep 'em safe 

below ; 
The Band's a-doin' all she knows to cheer us ; 
The chaplain's gone and prayed to Gawd to 
'ear us — 
To 'ear us — 
O L&rd, for it's a^kUling of us ^ I 



Since August, when it started, it's been sticking to 

our tail, 
Tho' they've 'ad us out by marches an' they've 

'ad us back by rail ; 
But it runs as fast as troop-trains, an' we can not 

get awa3i ^ 
An' the sick-list to the Colonel makes ten more 

to-day. 

There ain't no fun in women nor there ain't no bite 

to drink; 
It's much too wet for shootin', we can only march 

and think; 
An' at evenin', down the nullahs, we can 'ear 

the jackals say, 
''Get up, you rotten beggars, you've ten more 

to-day!" 

*T would make a monkey cough to see our way 

o' doin' things — 
Lieutenants takin companies an' captains takin' 

wings. 

An' Lances actin' Sergeants — eight file to obey — 

For we've lot's o' quick promotion on ten 

deaths a day ! 

i68 



Our Colonel's white an* twitterly — *e gets no sleep 

nor food, 
But mucks about in 'orspital where nothing does 

no good. 
'E sends us 'eaps o' comforts, all bought from 'is 

pay- 
But there aren't much comfort 'andy on ten deaths 

a day. 

Our Chaplain's got a banjo, an' a skinny mule 'e 

rides, 
An' the stuff 'e says an' sings us, Lord, it make? 

us split our sides 1 
With 'is black coat-tails a-bobbin' to Ta-ra-ra 

Boom-der-ay ! 
'E's the proper kind o' padre for ten deaths a 

day. 

An' Father Victor 'elps 'im with our Roman Catho- 

licks — 
He knows an 'eap of Irish songs an' rummy con- 

jurin' tricks; 
An' the two they works together when it comes 

to play or pray ; 

So we keep the ball a-rollin' on ten deaths a 

day. 

169 



We've got the cholerer in camp — we've got it 'ot 

an' sweet; 
It ain't no Christmas dinner, but it's 'elped an' we 

must eat. 
We've gone beyond the funkin', 'cause we've found 

it doesn't pay, 
An' we're rockin' round the Districk on ten deaths 

a day! 

Then strike your camp arC go, the Rains are 

falling 
The bugle's callin'! 
The dead are hushed an' stoned to keep 'em safe 

below ! 
An* them that do not like it they can lump it. 
An' them that can not stand it they can jump it; 
We've got to die somewhere — some way — some- 

'ow — 
We might as well begin to do it now! 
Then, Number One, let down the tent-pole 

slow. 

Knock out the pegs an' 'old the corners — so / 

Fold in the flies, furl up the ropes, an' stow ! 

Oh, strike — oh, strike your camp an' go I 

{Gawd 'elp us I) 

170 



THE LADIES. 

I've taken my fun where I've found it; 

I've rogued an' I've ranged in my time; 
I've 'ad my pickin' o' sweet'earts, 

An' four o' the lot was prime. 
One was an 'arf-caste widow, 

One was a woman at Prome, 
One was the wife of a jemadar-sais,* 

An' one is a girl at 'ome. 

Now I aren't no 'and with the ladies. 

For, takin' 'em all along, 
You never can say till you ve tried 'em, 

An' then you are like to be wrong. 
There's times when you' II think that you mightn't, 

Therms times when you'll know that you might; 
But the things you will learn from the Yellow an' 
Brown, 

They'll 'elpyou an 'eap with the White! 



* Head-groom. 
171 



I was a young un at 'Oogli, 

Shy as a girl to begin ; 
Aggie de Castrer she made me, 

An' Aggie was clever as sin ; 
Older than me, but my first un — 

More like a mother she were — 
Showed me the way to promotion an' pay, 

An* I learned about women from 'er. 



Then I was ordered to Burma, 

Actin' in charge o' Bazar, 
An' I got me a tiddy live 'eathen 

Through buyin' supplies off 'er pa. 
Funny an' yellow an' faithful — 

Doll in a teacup she were, 
But we lived on the square, like a true-married 
pair, 

An' I learned about women from 'er. 



Then we was shifted to Neemuch 

(Or I might ha' been keepin' 'er now), 

An' I took with a shiny she-devil, 

The wife of a nigger at Mhow ; 

172 



Taught me the gipsy-folks' bolee; * 

Kind o' volcano she were, 
For she knifed me one night 'cause I wished she 
was white, 

And I learned about women from 'er. 

Then I come 'ome in the trooper, 

'Long of a kid o' sixteen — 
Girl from a convent at Meerut, 

The straightest I ever 'ave seen. 
Love at first sight was 'er trouble, 

She didn't know what it were; 
An' I wouldn't do such, 'cause 1 liked 'er too much, 

But — I learned about women from 'er! 

I've taken my fun where I've found it, 

An' now I must pay for my fun, 
For the more you ave known o' the others 

The less will you settle to one ; 
An' the end of it's sittin' and thinkin', 

An' dreamin' Hell-fires to see; 
So be warned by my lot (which I know you will 
not), 

An' learn about women from me! 



* Slang. 
173 



What did the coloners lady think ? 

Nobody never knew. 
Somebody asked the sergeant's wife^ 

An' she told 'em true. 
When you get to a man in the case, 

They're like as a row of pins — 
For the colonel's lady an Judy O Grady 

Are sisters under their skins I 



S74. 



BILL 'AWKINS. 

**'As anybody seen Bill 'Awkins?" 
"Now *ow in the devil would I know?" 
**'E's taken my girl out walkin', 
An' I've got to tell 'im so — 
Gawd — bless — 'im ! 
I've got to tell 'im so." 



**D'yer know what 'e's like, Bill 'Awkins?" 
"Now what in the devil would 1 care?" 
*" 'E's the livin', breathin' image of an organ- 
grinder's monkey, 
With a pound of grease in 'is 'air — 

Gawd — bless — 'im! 
An' a pound o' grease in 'is 'air." 



" An' s'pose you met Bill 'Awkins, 
Now what in the devil 'ud ye do ? 
I7S 



"I'd open 'is cheek to 'is chin-strap buckle, 
An' bung up 'is both eyes, too — 

Gawd — bless — 'im ! 
An' bung up 'is both eyes, too I " 

•'Look 'ere, where *e comes, Bill 'AwkinsI 
Now what in the devil will you say ? " 
** It isn't fit an' proper to be fightin' on a Sunday, 
So I'll pass 'im the time o' day — 

Gawd — bless — 'im ! 
I'll pass 'im the time o' day! " 



THE MOTHER-LODGE. 

There was Rundle, Station Master^ 

An' Beazeley of the Rail, 
An' 'Ackman, Commissariat, 

An' 'Donkin o' the Jail; 
An' Blake, Conductor-Sargent, 

Our Master twice was 'e, 
With 'im that kept the Europe shop, 

Old Framjee Eduljee. 

Outside — " Sergeant I Sir / Salute ! Salaam I " 
Inside — " Brother,'' an' it doesn't do no 'arm. 
We met upon the Level an' we parted on tht 

Square, 
An' I was Junior Deacon in my Mother Lodge out 

there I 

We'd Bola Nath, Accountant, 

An' Saul the Aden Jew, 
An' Din Mohammed, draughtsman 

Of the Survey Office too; 
177 



There was Babu Chuckerbutty, 

An' Amir Singh the Sikh, 
An' Castro from the fittin'-sheds, 

The Roman Catholick ! 

We 'adn't good regalia, 

An' our Lodge was old an' bare, 
But we knew the Ancient Landmarks, 

An' we kep' 'em to a hair; 
An' lookin' on it backwards 

It often strikes me thus. 
There ain't such things as infidels, 

Excep', per'aps, it's us. 

For monthly, after Labour, 

We'd all sit down and smoke 
(We dursn't give no banquits. 

Lest a Brother's caste were broke)^ 
An' man on man got talkin' 

Religion an' the rest, 
An* every man comparin' 

Of the God 'e knew the best 

So man on man got talkin'. 

An' not a Brother stirred 
178 



Till mornin' waked the parrots 
An' that dam' brain-fever-bird; 

We'd say 'twas 'ighly curious, 
An' we'd all ride 'ome to bed, 

With Mo'ammed, God, an' Shiva 
Changin' pickets in our 'ead. 

Full oft on Guv'ment service 

This rovin' foot 'ath pressed, 
An' bore fraternal greetin's 

To the Lodges east an' west, 
Accordin' as commanded 

From Kohat to Singapore, 
But I wish that 1 might see them 

In my Mother Lodge once more! 

I wish that I might see them, 

My Brethren black an' brown, 
With the trichies smellin' pleasant 

An' the hog-darn* passin' down; 
An' the old khansamah f snorin' 

On the bottle-khana | floor, 
Lik^ a Master in good standing 

With my Mother Lodge once more! 

* Cigar-lighter. f Butler. X Pantry. 

17^ 



Outside—" Sergeant ! Sir I Salute I Salaam I " 
Inside—" Brother," an it doesn't do no 'arm. 
We met upon the Level an' we parted on the 
Square, 

Afi 1 was junior Deacon in my Mother Lodge out 
ther& ! 



iSo 



*' FOLLOW ME 'OME." 

There was no one like 'im, 'Orse or Foot, 
Nor any o' the Guns I knew; 
An' because it was so, why, o' course 'e went an' 
died, 
Which is just what the best men do. 

So it's knock out your pipes an' follow me! 
An' if s finish up your swipes an' follow me! 
Oh, 'ark to the big drum callin', 
Follow me— follow me 'ome ! 

*Is mare she neighs the 'ole day long. 
She paws the 'ole night through, 
An' she won't take 'er feed 'cause o' waitin' for 'is 
step, 
Which is just what a beast would do. 

'Is girl she goes with a bombardier 

Before 'er month is through; 
13 181 



An' the banns are up in church, for she's got the 
beggar hooked, 
Which is just what a girl would do. 

We fought 'bout a dog — last week it were— 
No more than a round or two; 
out I strook 'im cruel 'ard, an' I wish I 'adn't 
now, 
Which is just what a man can't do. 

'E was all that I 'ad in the way of a friend, 
An' I've 'ad to find one new; 
But I'd give my pay an' stripe for to get the beggar 
back. 
Which it's just too late to do. 

So it's knock out your pipes an' follow me ! 
An' if s finish off your swipes an follow me! 
Oh, 'ark to the fifes a-crawlin' I 
Follow me— follow me 'ome ! 

Take 'im away ! *E's gone where the best 

men go. 
Take 'im away! An' the gun-wheels 

turnin' slow. 

182 



Take 'im away I There* s more from the 

place 'e come. 
Take 'im away, with the limber an' the 

drum. 

For it's ' ' Three rounds blank " an' follow me^ 
An' ifs " Thirteen rank'' an' follow me; 
Oh, passin' the love o women, 
Follow me — follow me 'ome ! 



S83 



THE SERGEANT'S WEDDIN ', 

*E was warned agin 'er — 

That's what made 'im look; 
She was warned agin 'im — 

That is why she took. 
'Wouldn't 'ear no reason, 

'Went an' done it blind; 
We know all about 'em, 

They've got all to find! 

Cheer for the Sergeanfs weddin*- 
Give 'em one cheer more ! 

Gray gun-orses in the lando, 
An' a rogue is married to, etc. 

What's the use o' tellin' 

'Arf the lot she's been ? 
'E's a bloomin' robber, 

An* 'e keeps canteen. 
'Ow did 'e get 'is buggy ? 

Gawd, you needn't ask! 

Made 'is forty gallon 

Out of every cask! 
184 



Watch 'im, with 'is 'air cut. 

Count us filin' by — 
Won't the Colonel praise 'is 

Pop — u — lar — i — ty ! 
We 'ave scores to settle — 

Scores for more than beer; 
She's the girl to pay 'em — 

That is why we're 'ere ! 

See the chaplain thinkin' ? 

See the women smile ? 
Twig the married winkin' 

As they take the aisle ? 
Keep your side-arms quiet, 

Dressin' by the Band. 
Ho ! You 'oly beggars, 

Cough behind your 'and I 

Now it's done an' over, 

'Ear the organ squeak, 
" yoke that breathed o'er Eden "- 

Ain't she got the cheek! 
White an' laylock ribbons, 

Think yourself so fine! 
I'd pray Gawd to take yer 

'Fore I made yer mine! 
1^5 



Escort to the kerridge, 

Wish 'im luck, the brute! 
Chuck the slippers after — 

[Pity 'taint a boot!] 
Bowin' like a lady, 

Blushin' like a lad — 
'Oo would say to see 'em — 

Both are rotten bad 1 

Cheer for the Sergeant's weddin'- 
Give 'em one cheer more / 

Gray gun-orses in the lando, 
An' a rogue is married to, etc. 



i86 



THE JACKET. 

Through the Plagues of Egyp' we was chasm' 
Arabi, 
Gettin' down an' shovin' in the sun; 
An' you might 'ave called us dirty, an' you might 
ha' called us dry, 
An' you might 'ave 'eard us talkin' at the gun. 
But the Captain 'ad 'is jacket, an' the jacket it 
was new— 
(*Orse-Gunners, listen to my song!) 
An' the wettin' of the jacket is the proper thing 
to do, 
Nor we didn't keep 'im waiting very long! 

One day they give us orders for to shell a sand re- 
doubt, 
Loadin' down the axle-arms with case; 

But the Captain knew 'is dooty, an' he took the 

crackers out, 

An' he put some proper liquor in its place. 

187 



An' the Captain saw the shrapnel (which is six- 
an'-thirty clear). 
('Orse-Gunners, listen to my song!) 
'* Will you draw the weight," sez 'e, ''or will you 
draw the beer ? " 
An' we didn't keep 'im waitin' very long. 

For the Captain, etc. 

Then we trotted gentle, not to break the bloomin' 
glass, 
Though the Arabites 'ad all their ranges marked; 
But we dursn't 'ardly gallop, for the most was 
bottled Bass, 
An' we'd dreamed of it since we was disem- 
barked. 
So we fired economic with the shells we 'ad in 'and, 

('Orse-Gunners, listen to my song!) 
But the beggars under cover 'ad the impidence to 
stand. 
An' we couldn't keep 'em waitin' very long. 

And the Captain, etc. 

So we finished 'arf the liquor (an' the Captain took 

champagne). 

An' the Arabites was shootin' all the while; 

i88 



An' we left our wounded appy with the empties 
on the plain, 
An' we used the bloomin' guns for pro-jec-tile ! 
We limbered up an' galloped — there were nothin' 
else to do — 
('Orse-Gunners, listen to my song!) 
An' the Battery come a-boundin' like a boundin' 
kangaroo, 
But they didn't watch us comin' very long. 

As the Captain, etc 



We was goin' most extended — we was drivin' 
very fine. 
An' the Arabites were loosin' 'igh an' wide, 
Till the Captain took the glassy with a rattlin' 
right incline. 
An' we dropped upon their 'eads the other side. 
Then we give 'em quarter — such as 'adn't up and 
cut, 
('Orse-Gunners, listen to my song!) 
An' the Captain stood a limberful of fizzy — some- 
thin' Brutt, 
But we didn't leave it fizzing very long. 

For the Captain, etc. 
189 



We might ha' been court-martialled, but it all 
come out all right 
When they signalled us to join the main com- 
mand. 
There was every round expended, there was every 
gunner tight, 
An' the Captain waved a corkscrew in 'is 'and! 

But the Captain had 'is jacket, etc. 



THE 'EATHEN. 

The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood 

an' stone; 
'E don't obey no orders unless they is 'is own; 
'E keeps 'is side-arms awful: 'e leaves 'em all 

about, 
An' then comes up the regiment an' pokes the 

'eathen out 



All along dirtiness, all along o' mess, 
All along o' doin' things rather-more-or-less, 
All along of ahhy-nay,^ kul,\ and ha^ar-ho, X 
Mind you keep your rifle an' yourself jus' so! 

The young recruit is 'aughty — 'e draf s from Gawd 

knows where; 
They bid 'im show 'is stockin's an' lay 'is mattress 

square ; 

• Not now. f To-morrow. } Wait a bit. 
191 



*E calls it bloomin' nonsense — 'e doesn't know, no 

more — 
An' then up comes *is company an' kicks 'em 

round the floor! 

The young recruit is 'ammered — 'e takes it very 

'ard; 
'E 'angs 'is 'ead an' mutters — 'e sulks about the 

yard; 
'E talks o' ** cruel tyrants " 'e'U swing for by-an'- 

bye, 
An' the others 'ears an' mocks 'im, an' the boy 

goes orf to cry. 

The young recruit is silly — 'e thinks o' suicide ; 
'E's lost 'is gutter-devil; 'e 'asn't got 'is pride; 
But day by day they kicks 'im, which 'elps 'im on 

a bit, 
Till 'e finds 'isself one mornin' with a full an' 

proper kit. 

Gefttn' clear o' dirtiness, gettin' done with 

mesSj 
Gettin' shut o' doin things rather-more-or- 

less ; 

Not so fond of ahby-nay, kul, nor ha^ar-hOt 

Learns to keep 'is rifle an '^iself jus' so! 

192 



The young recruit is 'appy — 'e throws a chest to 

suit; 
You see 'im grow mustaches; you 'ear 'im slap 'is 

boot; 
'E learns to drop the ** bloodies " from every word 

he slings, 
An' 'e shows an 'ealthy brisket when 'e strips for 

bars an' rings. 



The cruel tyrant sergeants they watch 'im 'arf a 
year; 

They watch 'im with 'is comrades, they watch 'im 
with 'is beer; 

They watch 'im with the women, at the regi- 
mental dance. 

And. the cruel tyrant sergeants send 'is name along 
for '* Lance." 

An' now 'e's 'arf o' nothin', an' all a private yet, 
'Is room they up an' rags 'im to see what they will 

get; 
They rags 'im low an' cunnin', each dirty trick 

they can, 

But 'e learns to sweat 'is temper an' 'e learns to 

know 'is man. 

193 



An^ last, a Colour-Sergeant, as such to be 

obeyed, 
'E leads 'is men at cricket, 'e leads 'em on parade; 
They sees 'em quick an' 'andy, uncommon set an' 

smart. 
An' so 'e talks to orficers which 'ave the Core at 

'eart. 

'E learns to do 'is watchin' without it showin' 

plain ; 
'E learns to save a dummy, an' shove 'im straight 

again; 
E learns to check a ranker that's buyin' leave to 

shirk ; 
An' 'e learns to make men like 'im so they'll learn 

to like their work. 

kn' when it comes to marchin' he'll see their socks 

are right, 
An' when it comes to action 'e shows 'em 'ow to 

sight; 
'E knows their ways of thinkin' and just what's in 

their mind; 

*E feels when they are comin' on an' when they've 

fell be'ind. 

194 



'E knows each talkin' corpril that leads a squad 

astray ; 
'E feels 'is innards 'eavin', 'is bowels givin' 

way; 
'E sees the blue-white faces all tryin' 'ard to 

grin, 
An' 'e stands an' waits an' suffers till it's time to 

cap 'em in. 

An' now the hugly bullets come peckin' through 

the dust, 
An' no one wants to face 'em, but every beggar 

must; 
So, like a man in irons which isn't glad to go, 
They moves 'em off by companies uncommon 

stiff an' slow. 

Of all 'is five years' schoolin' they don't remember 

much 
Excep' the not retreatin', the step an' keepin' 

touch. 
It looks like teachin' wasted when they duck an' 

spread an' 'op,. 
But if 'e 'adn't learned 'em they'd be all about the 

shop I 



An' now it's ** 'Oo goes backward ?" an' now it's 

" 'Oo comes on ?" 
An' now it's "Get the doolies," an' now the 

captain's gone; 
An' now it's bloody murder, but all the while they 

'ear 
*ls voice, the same as barrick drill, a-shepherdin* 

the rear. 

'E's just as sick as they are, 'is 'eart is like to 

split, 
But 'e works 'em, works 'em, works 'em till *t 

feels 'em take the bit; 
The rest is 'oldin' steady till the watchful bugles 

play, 
An' 'e lifts 'em, lifts 'em, lifts 'em through the 

charge that wins the day ! 

The *eathen in *^s blindness bows down to wood 

an stone; 
'E don't obey no orders unless they is 'is own; 
The 'eathen in 'is blindness must end where *e 

began, 
But the backbone of the Army is the noncom^ 

missioned m^r / 

I9<5 



Keep away from dirtiness — keep away from 

mess. 
Don't get into doin' things rather-more-or-less ) 
Lefs ha' done with abby-nay, kul, an' ha^ar-ho; 
Mind you keep your rifle an' yourself jus' sol 



14 



THE SHUT-EYE SENTRY. 

Sez the Junior Orderly Sergeant 

To the Senior Orderly Man : 
*' Our Orderly Orf cer's hokee-mut. 

You 'elp 'im all you can. 
For the wine was old and the night is cold, 

An' the best we may go wrong, 
So, 'fore 'e gits to the sentry-box. 

You pass the word along." 

Then it was *' Rounds / What rounds ? " at two 
of a frosty night, 
*E's 'oldin' on by the sergeant* s sash, but, sentry, 
shut your eye. 
Annrs^'Pass! AlVsweUI'' Oh, ain't 'e rockin' 
tight! 
'Ell need an affidavit pretty badly by-an'-bye. 

The moon was white on the barricks, 

The road was white an' wide, 
An' the Orderly Orf cer took it all, 

An' the ten-foot ditch beside, 
198 



An' the corporal pulled an' the sergeant pushed. 
An' the three they wagged along, 

But I'd shut my eyes in the sentry-box, 
So I didn't see nothin' wrong. 

Though it was ''Rounds! What rounds?'' O 
corporal, 'old 'im up ! 
'E's usin' 'is cap as it shouldn't be used, but, 
sentry, shut your eye. 
An' it's "Pass/ All's well!" Ho, shun the foam- 
in' cup! 
'E'll need, etc. 

Twas after four in the mornin' ; 

We 'ad to stop the fun, 
An' we sent 'im 'ome on a bullock-cart. 

With 'is belt an' stock undone; 
But we sluiced 'im down an' we washed 'im 
out. 

An' a first-class job we made. 
When we saved 'im smart as a bombardier 

For six o'clock parade. 

// *ad been ''Rounds ! What rounds ? " Oh, show 
'im straight again ! 
'E's usin' 'is sword for a bicycle, but, sentty, shid 
your ^e, 

199 



4n' it was ''Pass! All's well/" 'Fs called ms 
*'darlin' Jane"! 
'E'll need, etc. 

The drill was *ard an' 'eavy, 

The sky was 'ot an' blue, 
An' 'is eye was wild an' 'is 'air was wet. 

But 'is sergeant pulled 'im through. 
Our men was good old trusties — 

They'd done it on their 'ead; 
But you ought to 'ave 'eard 'em markin* time 

To 'ide the things 'e said! 

For it was ''Right flank— wheel! "for " 'Alt, an' 
stand at ease ! " 
An' ''Left extend!" for "Centre close!" 
marker, shut your eye ! 
An' it was, '"Ere, sir, 'ere! before the colonel 
sees ! " 
So he needed affldavits pretty badly by-an'-bye. 

There was two-an'-thirty sergeants, 

There was corp'rals forty-one, 
There was just nine 'undred rank an* file 

To swear to a touch o' sun. 



There was me 'e'd kissed in the sentry-box 
(As I 'ave not told in my song), 

But I took my oath, which were Bible truth, 
1 'adn't seen nothin' wrong. 

There's them that's 'ot an' 'aughty, 

There's them that's cold an' 'ard. 
But there comes a night when the best gets 
tight, 

An' then turns out the Guard. 
I've seen them 'ide their liquor 

In every kind o' way. 
But most depends on makin' friends 

With Privit Thomas A. 

When it is ''Rounds! What rounds?** 'E's 
breathin through 'is nose, 
*E'sreelin\ rollin\ roarin' ripe, hut, sentry, shut 
your eye. 
An* it's * 'Pass ! All's well ! " An* that's the way 
it goes. 
We*ll *elp Hm for *is mother, an* *e*ll *elp us 
by-an'-bye. 



20I 



"MARY, PITY WOMEN !*^ 

You call yourself a man, 

For all you used to swear, 
An' leave me, as you can. 

My certain shame to bear ? 

I 'ear! You do not care — 

You done the worst you know. 
I 'ate you, grinnin' there. ... 

Ah, Gawd, I love you so! 

Nice while it lasted, an* now it is over — 

Tear out your 'eart an' good-bye to your lover! 

What's the use & grievin', when the another thai 

bore you 
(Mary, pity women !) knew it all before you ? 

It aren't no false alarm, 

The finish to your fun ; 

You — you 'ave brung the 'arm, 

An' I'm the ruined one; 
202 



An' now you'll off an' run 
With some new fool in tow. 

Your 'eart ? You 'aven't none. . . . 
Ah, Gawd, I love you so! 

When a man is tired there is naught will bind 

'im ; 
All 'e solemn promised 'e will shove behind Hm. 
Whafs the good o' pray in' for The Wrath to 

strike 'im, 
{Mary, pity women !) when the rest are like 'im ? 

What 'ope for me or— it ? 

What's left for us to do ? 
I've walked with men a bit. 

But this — but this is you 1 

So 'elp me Christ, it's true! 

Where can I 'ide or go ? 
You coward through an' through ! . . • 

Ah, Gawd, I love you so! 

All the more you give 'em the less are they for 

givin' ! 

Love lies dead, an' you can not kiss 'im livin'o 

Down the road 'e led you there is no returnin\ 

{Mary, pi\y women !) but you're late in learnin\ 

103 



You'd like to treat me fair ? 
You can't, because we're pore ? 

We'd starve ? What do I care ! 
We might, but this is shore: 
I want the name — no more — 
The name, an' lines to show. 

An' not to be an 'ore. . . . 
Ah, Gawd, I love you so! 

Whafs the good o' pleadin\ when the mother 

that bore you 
{Mary, pity women !) knew it all before you ? 
Sleep on 'is promises an' wake to your sorrow, 
(Mary, pity women !) for we sail to-morrow I 



204 



FOR TO ADMIRE. 

The Injian Ocean sets an' smiles 

So sof , so bright, so bloomin' blue; 
There aren't a wave for miles an' miles 

Excep' the jiggle from the screw. 
The ship is swep', the day is done, 

The bugle's gone for smoke an' play; 
An' black ag'in' the settin' sun 

The Lascar sings, " Hum deckty hat I ''* 

For to admire an* for to see, 

For to be' old this world so wide — 

// never done no good to me, 
But I can 't drop it if I tried I 

I see the sergeants pitchin' quoits, 
I 'ear the women laugh an' talk, 

I spy upon the quarter-deck 
The orficers an' lydies walk. 

* " I'm looking out." 
205 



I thinks about the things that was, 
An' leans an' looks acrost the sea, 

Till, spite of all the crowded ship, 
There's no one lef alive but me. 

The things that was which I *ave seen. 

In barrick, camp, an' action too, 
I tells them over by myself, 

An' sometimes wonders if they're tru# 
For they was odd — most awful odd — 

But all the same now they are o'er. 
There must be 'eaps o' plentv such. 

An' if I wait I'll see some more. 

Oh, I 'ave come upon the books. 

An' often broke a barrick rule, 
An' stood beside an' watched myself 

Be'avin' like a bloomin' fool. 
1 paid my price for findin' out. 

Nor never grutched the price I paid, 
But sat in Clink without my boots, 

Admirin' 'ow the world was made. 

Be'old a cloud upon the beam. 

An' 'umped above the sea appears 

Old Aden, like a barrick-stove 

That no one's lit for years an* years! 
206 



I passed by that when I began, 
An' I go 'ome the road I came, 

A time-expired soldier-man 
With six years' service to 'is name. 

My girl she said, ** Oh, stay with me! " 

My mother 'eld me to 'er breast. 
They've never written none, an' so 

They must 'ave gone with all the rest— 
With all the rest which I 'ave seen 

An' found an' known an' met along. 
I cannot say the things I feel, 

But still I sing my evenin' song: 

For to admire an ' for to see, 
For to he' old this world so wide — 

// never done no good to me, 
But I can't drop it if I tried I 



307 




When Earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes 

are twisted and dried, 
When the oldest colours have faded, and the 

youngest critic has died, 
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it — lie 

down for an aeon or two. 
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set us 

to work anew ! 



And those that were good shall be happy: they 
shall sit in a golden chair; 

They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with 
brushes of comets' hair; 

They shall find real saints to draw from — Mag- 
dalene, Peter, and Paul; 

They shall work for an age at a sitting and never 

be tired at all! 

208 



And only the Master shall praise us, and only the 

Master shall blame; 
And no one shall work for money, and no one 

shall work for fame; 
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in 

his separate star. 
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of 

Things as They Arel 



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